The Diaries
by Zoni
Summary: When Kagome finds a box of 500-year-old journals, she discovers that her future is everything she dreamed - but that dream may kill Inuyasha. When she risks everything to save him, will she discover that her future may not be in the past? Inu/Kag Hojo/Kag
1. Chapter One

**The Diaries  
**_Chapter One  
_by Zoni

"Oh, wow! It's beautiful outside!" Kagome threw her bedroom window open and let the fresh air pour in. It wasn't quite spring, but it definitely wasn't winter any more. The weather had finally let up on the gloom and rain for a day and she was determined to take advantage of that. She and Mama had decided to use their good fortune to take care of some much needed cleaning. Compared to the danger and excitement that was waiting for her on the other side of the well, Kagome found this domestic scene to be almost refreshing. When she had finished admiring the sunshine, she hoisted the pile of rugs that she had collected from various rooms around the house and headed down the stairs.

"I'm just going to take these outside for now," she said as she passed by the kitchen. Mama and Souta were taking care of cleaning the kitchen and the living room. Her little brother had even gone all out and stuck a bandanna on his head so he could look more like Mama and herself. It was hilarious and adorable, but Kagome admired him for pitching in instead of asking to play more video games. If only some of the other men in her life would buck up and help out around the house, she thought. Inuyasha had stuck his tongue out and said he'd leave her to her exams before vanishing down the well. It was only a shame that she hadn't had a chance to say "osuwari!" before he went.

"Thank you, Kagome," Mama said, pulling her hands out of the soapy water in the sink to wave her thanks. "Ah, just a minute. Could you go out to the storeroom and grab a carpet beater so we can get those properly taken care of?"

Blinking, Kagome asked, "Don't we have one in the closet?"

"We did, but Grandpa decided to move it last month when he ordered his latest shipments of charms for the shrine." Her mother smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, I should have told you earlier."

"He actually sells enough that he had to order more?" Kagome was amazed. "It's no problem, Mama. I'll go ahead and get it."

Turning, she headed for the front door. After considering for a moment, she set the pile of rugs outside and decided that it might be easier to head to the storage room with empty arms. Retrieving the carpet beater should have been relatively easy task but she wondered if it had been hidden behind boxes or bags of some sort. Somehow, it was always the easy stuff that wound up ruining her day. Walking across the lawn, she approached the building and braced herself as she slid the doors open. Grandpa always stored everything in here and you never knew quite what you were going to find.

Even with the bright light of day pouring in through the open doorway, Kagome could tell at once that this was going to be far more difficult than it should be. The carpet beater was not propped up against the wall by the door where it should be. It also wasn't hanging on one of the hooks they'd placed on the far wall for storing things like that. With a heavy sigh, she stepped into the room and began to move boxes and arrange artifacts in the hopes that it might reveal itself. Moving a crate aside, she shrieked in horror as a large stone figure of a cat fell off one of one of the shelves and, with a loud cracking sound, knocked the lid off of a flimsy looking trunk that was shoved halfway underneath one of the overhanging shelves.

"Crap," Kagome groaned, staring in dismay at the resulting mess. This was going to be a pain in the butt to clean up! That cat statue must have weighed a ton, especially since it had managed to completely take the top off of the old trunk that had been sitting on the floor under it. She looked over the mess and tried to take in the damage. The lid to the trunk had been snapped off at the hinges, which now lay in pieces in the floor. The trunk's lid lay halfway off of it and halfway on a second trunk next to it. Both trunks and most of the floor were completely covered with little pieces of wood and metal, all dusted with flecks of paint. Kagome picked down to pick the cat up to restore it to its rightful position, and froze. The lid from the trunk, now cracked and broken, lay lopsided over the edge of its previously guarded box. From the inside of the trunk, Kagome could very distinctly feel the fuzzy glow of energy. It wasn't like the Shikon no Tama, and it certainly wasn't evil, it was just... energy. Curious, she looked into the trunk and began to examine its contents for the first time.

The wooden crate was filled with journals. Dozens, possibly hundreds of them. They were in a variety of sizes and colors, though the ones that made up most of the top layer were a sort of olive green with a white wildflower pattern printed on them. Kagome had seen journals almost identical to them before, they were common at convenience stores. Why there should be a collection of them in the storeroom - and such a large collection, too - was a mystery. Tentatively, she reached a hand out and picked up one of the books. The cover almost felt warm to the touch, familiar. She turned the journal over in her hands to get a better look at it. It looked almost new on the outside, but on the inside the pages had yellowed with time. Even with signs of aging, the paper didn't seem to be delicate or fragile as far as she could tell. Somehow, though, the book still looked ancient. Some of the pages even looked like they had blood on them!

Curiosity got the best of her and Kagome flipped to a random page and started reading. The clear, modern kanji was unexpected, but not nearly as much so as the words that were etched into the page.

_This is the fourth village we've passed through that has been attacked in the last month. It's terrible. I don't think we're up against another one of Naraku's offspring so much as bad luck, but it's still depressing. Inuyasha seems to think these attacks are all the fault of different youkai working together, but I think he just wants an excuse to use Kaze no Kizu. Geez, why can't he ever do anything the easy way? Miroku-sama and-_

A wave of dizziness swept over her as she first read and then reread the short entry in the journal. The writing on the page was definitely her own handwriting. There were absolutely no doubts that it was talking about Inuyasha, Miroku-sama and Sango-chan and youkai attacks on villages. Kagome was also quite certain about one other thing; she had never written in a journal a day in her life. Her eyes darted up to the top of the page where a date had been written in black ink. She rubbed her eyes and then took another look. Today was February the fourth. The entry she was reading was very definitely dated March twenty-seventh.

Taking a deep breath, Kagome wondered what she had gotten herself into.

/~*~*~\

"I couldn't find the carpet beater but I think I need to lay down. I'll finish dusting later," Kagome said as she came back into the house. While she hadn't recovered the carpet beater, she had brought several of the diaries with her. Still not quite believing what she had found, her curiosity had gotten the best of her. She knew that she had to read more.

Mama had finished the dishes and was now busying herself with vacuuming the living room. "Are you okay, Kagome? If you're sick then maybe you should take some medicine."

"No, I'm fine," Kagome replied. "I think I just over did it a bit. I'll just lay down for a little while."

Making her way upstairs, she shut the window to her room and went to lay down on the bed. She set two of the diaries to the side but opened a third. All of the words on the page were penned in the same neat, smooth black ink that she recognized from the first book she had picked up. The date in the upper right hand corner wasn't dated that far into the future from now. It was barely more than a week away. She found it hard to believe that these diaries could be genuine, even though there really was no other explanation. Tracing her fingertips across the paper, she could even feel where the pen had left impressions in it. It was as if it had been written only yesterday. The only sign that it hadn't been written recently was the slight yellowing of the pages. _Why are all of these journals out there?_

Kagome emerged from her room two hours later. The afternoon sunlight was starting to fade into the darker colors of evening, but she was just now rolling up her sleeves to get started on the dusting. Pulling her hair up on top of her head and affixing it with a clip, Kagome grabbed a duster from out of a closet and got started. As she dusted, her thoughts wandered over everything she had just read.

She had managed to read through all of one diary, and she had even started on a second but... it was just too hard to believe. Books could never survive that long and still be in such good condition. The journals out there were practically spotless, for Pete's sake. And even if, for example, that light glow of energy she felt from them had managed to preserve them... well, there were just so many of them! Kagome hadn't counted them, but it was obvious that there were more than likely hundreds of journals. That entire trunk had been completely full, and she would be willing to bet that the trunk beside it had contained more. After all, it had been identical to the first trunk and they had been tied together.

Whether or not she wanted to consider it, there was a heck of a lot more than just a couple of years of going back and forth between the modern world and the feudal era recorded in those books. There had to be decades worth of diary entries, individual stories of day to day happenings and what went on in her life, and all of them were recorded on paper in those boxes for her to read. The only way that was even possible was if the diaries had been written in, or left in, the past. Five hundred years in the past and some how, some way, they had stayed in the shrine all of these centuries. She certainly hadn't written them yet. There wasn't even one of those little preschool journals from when she was a kid still in her possession, let alone the copious amounts of personal experiences that were currently sitting out in the family storage area. Those would have taken years to write! And the fact that they would have had to remain at the shrine - a family shrine, nonetheless - was a thought that her mind just was not prepared to consider. Besides, there was just no way she'd still be going back and forth between the feudal era and home when she was, say, Mama's age.

That thought hit her like a ton of bricks and she stood straight up, nearly hitting her head on a shelf. Kagome suddenly realized that she had absolutely no idea what she would be doing in five or even ten years, let alone when she _was_ Mama's age. Taking a moment to fold her arms across her chest, duster firmly in hand, she tried to think about it. She was starting at the university next year and then it would be onwards to a proper medical school. But when she tried to picture herself working in a hospital the picture became incredibly fuzzy. Even trying to think of being in a college classroom was a bit too much. It was like there were pieces missing from the picture. Sighing and shaking her head, she had to admit that trying to think that far ahead was kind of frightening. Sometimes it seemed like the future was just a bit too vague for her liking.

Putting the duster away, Kagome headed back up to her room. Her head was still spinning from finding the diaries but right now they were neither here nor there. For all she knew this was some sort of elaborate hoax. For the time being she would just pay them no mind. She knew that she wouldn't be able to keep that guise up for long, however. That afternoon she had read through the journal she believed was the first journal in the collection. The dates mentioned in it were quickly approaching. All it would take was another week of waiting and she would know whether or not they were real. She wasn't sure why, but some part of her desperately wanted to know. Were they real?

That night, after some consideration, Kagome tucked the other two journals that she had brought up with her into her backpack. What could it hurt? Even if she did doubt whether or not the books were authentic, she had to admit that the idea was intriguing. Some part of her wished they were real. If they were, then surely she had a reason for returning to the feudal era time and time again. Hopefully that reason's name was Inuyasha. At the thought of the hanyou, Kagome slumped back on her bed and sighed. What was happening to her? She almost wished she had stayed back in the world through the well rather than coming back for exams. Once again, she thought, her priorities were in all the wrong places - and this time she wasn't entirely certain where that was.

/~*~*~\

"Oh my god," Kagome's voice was shocked as she stared at two things at once. The first and foremost was the scene that was playing itself out in the middle of the room. The second was a couple of smudged and extremely dirty pages in one of the journals that she had been reading.

In the center of the room, Miroku was producing an impressive amount of blood that seemed to be pouring out of two very separate wounds. The first was a large cut on his left arm that he had recieved while they had been dealing with a particularly nasty bug youkai that had succeeded in doing a large amount of damage. The second injury was a cut on his forehead which had been delivered with swift vengeance by Sango when, while the taijiya had been bandaging his arm, the monk had decided to show his gratitude by doing a little exploring with his free hand. Sango, no longer feeling as though the monk deserved much help with his injuries, had dealt the blow before standing up, calling him a hopeless case of incompetence and then leaving the room.

Which was exactly the sequence of events that describe in the journal pages Kagome was now blinking at, wide-eyed. Inuyasha eyed her suspiciously. "Oi, Kagome. You okay?"

"I'm... fine." It had been this way for the past two weeks now, ever since she had discovered the journals in the broken trunk. She had paid attention when the dates for the entries had approached, to see whether or not they held true. As a precaution, she had gone to the convenience store down the street from her home and bought journals so she could keep entries herself. After all, the diaries couldn't exist if she had never written them. Whether or not the entries remained the same was beyond her. As soon as she had written an entry down in her new journal, it vanished from the pages of the old one and, try as she might, she just couldn't seem to remember whether or not it was the same word-for-word. The details were too fuzzy in her memory, as if they had also been rewritten.

She closed the book and slid it quietly back into her pack. Reaching further in, she pulled out another one of the books. This one was a bit more rugged than the rest and half of the pages had dark brown smears that looked like dried blood. Interested in seeing if these journals could provide helpful clues for finding the rest of the Shikon no Tama shards, or even possibly avoiding danger, Kagome had been reading ahead. What she found had not helped her in her search. Instead, this journal had terrified her. The first entry in it was dated no more than six weeks away. The thought of avoiding danger flashed through her mind again as she flipped open the journal and felt her breath catch in her chest.

_I knew today was going to be a bad day. We woke up to rain. Inuyasha and Sango told us last night it would be dry. Ugh. It didn't even wake me up! I just woke up in a puddle in my sleeping bag! It's going to take days to dry that out... Even with the bad weather, I probably shouldn't have use "osuwari" on Inuyasha this morning. It isn't his fault that it rained, but geez. I wish he'd be a little bit more sensitive every once and a while, it can't be _that _hard._

The handwriting was sharp and annoyed in the manner that it had been layed down on the page. A couple of the letters had been blurred out by water, no doubt from the rain. While not terrible, it had been obvious that Kagome had been under a lot of stress when the entry had been written. Like most of the entries in the journals, small notes and doodles had been added through out the day. The entry skipped a couple of lines on the paper and picked up in smoother, slower writing. Kagome pressed her hand to the back of the book to support it as she kept reading.

_Earlier today we ran into Kikyo. While we were walking down a road, she approached us out of the mist and asked about Naraku. She wanted to know if we had heard anything about his whereabouts. When we told her that we didn't know anything, she just turned around and left in the same direction that she had come from. She didn't do anything, didn't even really say anything. Nothing even happened, really, but I still hate what happens every time that we see her. It's been a couple of hours since then but Inuyasha still won't even look at me. He's become very quiet. If I asked, I know he would deny it, but it still bothers me. I just know he's thinking about going to her, but shouldn't I be used to that by now? Kikyo and Inuyasha have a history that will never stop existing just because I'm here. I really shouldn't be feeling this sad over something like this._

As her eyes followed the words on paper, Kagome's heart ached as she recognized the familar feelings of pain and jealousy that frequently accompanied a visit from Kikyo. She knew exactly how the Kagome writing that journal entry had felt. How many times had she watched Inuyasha leave their group to go see his dead love? Kikyo had been dead for fifty years. Even Inuyasha himself had acknowledged that. It didn't change the fact that he still went to her whenever the chance arose. It was as if all of the time that she, Kagome, had spent with him meant nothing. Even so, Kagome knew that it didn't change the deep affection she felt for the hanyou.

As the words on the page expressed the hollowness that Kagome felt when he left her to visit Kikyo, the entry came to an abrupt end. The bottom of the page was punctuated by a large, slightly smattered smear of rough brown across the paper. Hesitantly, Kagome reached to turn the page. She had read this entry before and she knew what was coming. On the next page, the handwriting was wide set and loosely spaced, as if she had written the entry when she had been extremely tired. Just by looking at it she could tell that she had been in a bad mind set, probably unimaginably stressed. It was a wonder that she hadn't cut through the paper with her pen.

_It's been almost a week since I've been able to write in here. Everything has gone to hell. I don't even know where to begin, but I'll have to hurry because I want to finish before Inuyasha wakes up again._

_I know I said that Kikyo came to visit us as we were traveling and that I thought Inuyasha would go to see her that night. Late in the afternoon he made some excuses and wound up leaving. Nobody was fooled, we all knew where he was going, but nobody said anything. I didn't feel like sitting around the fire and staring or doing some homework, so I decided that I would go for a walk. We were in a beautiful section of forest and the road passes some breathtaking views. Even if there were youkai in the area, I doubt I would have cared. I took my bow and arrows, just in case, and I left to distract myself for a while._

_As I walked down the road I came across a small creek that passed through an open meadow. I decided to follow it for a ways and lost track of time. It started getting dark out and I realized that I was having trouble finding my way back, even with the stream to guide me, it turned out to be a lot harder going back the same way I had come. As I attempted to figure out a way to get back to the road, I noticed a glowing light in the forest and thought that I had somehow managed to wind up back within range of our camp. With this thought in mind, I headed towards the light. As I approached I started to realize that it wasn't our camp that I had been seeing._

_As the trees thinned out, I made out the shapes of Inuyasha and Kikyo. I would have turned my back and walked away if Kikyo hadn't been staring at me. It was almost as if she had been expecting me. She was holding Inuyasha with a hand wrapped around his back and another hand cradling the back of his head, almost as if she were petting him. Inuyasha seemed to be in a daze but, even now, I wonder if he might have been conscious of my presence there. Her black eyes never left me as she leaned up and kissed him. It was very painful to watch him pull her closer, to see the way that he leaned into her touch, and I'm certain that my reaction is exactly what she was looking for. As I turned to go, she stopped kissing him and looked at me again. She said to me, "Did you ever think he really loved you? That he even cared for you? He will always be mine, Kagome. Are you really so foolish as to wish for anything else? He came to me again tonight, and I did not even ask him to. He is mine. He will always be mine."_

_She pulled him closer and then told me that she would show me what she meant. As I watched, she tightened her grip on his head and on his back and then, without further warning, unleashed an amazingly powerful blast of energy from her hands. For a moment, all I could see was the radiating light and then I heard the screams. It was the most horrible sound I have ever heard, caught somewhere between a child and an animal crying out in the most unbelievable pain as Inuyasha reacted to what she was doing to him. That sound is something that will haunt my nightmares forever. I watched in horror as the light faded and I could see that Inuyasha's coat, hair and even the skin across his face and neck were melting like a candle against a flame._

_She pulled him closer and then told me that she would show me what she meant. As I watched, she tightened her grip on his head and on his back and then, without further warning, unleashed an amazingly powerful blast of energy from her hands. For a moment, all I could see was the radiating light and then I heard the screams. It was the most horrible sound I have ever heard, caught somewhere between a child and an animal crying out in the most unbelievable pain as Inuyasha reacted to what she was doing to him. That sound is something that will haunt my nightmares forever. I watched in horror as the light faded and I could see that Inuyasha's coat, hair and even the skin across his face and neck were melting like a candle against a flame._

_I thought he was dead. I will never forget the way he looked, no matter how long I live. Half of his face was just... gone. Melted away. It looked like raw meat. There wasn't much blood, but there was a horrible smell, it made my stomach sick and it was just... terrible. Sango, Miroku and Shippou arrived not long after, they had heard the scream, and we managed to get him to Kaede's village._

_It's been a week since that night. He sleeps occasionally but most of the time he just drifts in and out of consciousness due to the pain. It's a miracle that he's alive but even now we're not sure he'll make it. Kaede says he'll never be able to see again. One of his eyes is completely gone, the other one is badly scarred. When he is awake, he can't talk. Part of the holy energy burned through a large portion of his throat but we hope that, if he survives, that might heal at least enough for him to be able to speak. While I haven't told the others yet, Kaede has told me privately that she doubts that Inuyasha will ever be able to walk again. The combination of the holy energy that was put so directly against his back, and then being thrown against the rock face by Kikyo, has dealt a large amount of damage that Kaede can't treat very well. She has done the best she can, and we are all very grateful. If it hadn't been holy energy that did the damage then his youkai healing might have helped, but even that is no use this time._

_The sight of Inuyasha is almost more than I can stand right now. His long, white hair is gone and even his ears are little more than raw, red nubs on top of his head. Most of his body is covered in bandages. More than ever, I realize just how important he is to me. I just wish that there was some way that I could have prevented all of this from happening._

"Kagome, what's wrong? You're crying."

Kagome almost jumped as Inuyasha's voice asked the question. Looking up, she found the hanyou staring intently at her from no more than a foot away. The look on his face was colored with worry and there was no hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"Crying?" She reached up and wiped her eyes. She hadn't even realized that she had been crying. Looking around the room, she noticed that Inuyasha wasn't the only one staring. Sango, Miroku and Shippou were all looking at her as well. Hurriedly, she dropped the book back and tried to put on her best smile. "I'm fine. It's nothing, really. Guess I must be tired."

Inuyasha eyed her for a moment before sighing and sitting back a bit. "Keh. It's probably all those exam thingies of yours."

Kagome put the diary back into her backpack. When she turned around again, Inuyasha was still sitting beside her. She hadn't really expected him to stay there. Normally, he would have moved off or gone to find something to do. He wasn't known for sitting still for long. The hanyou, however, didn't seem to mind. After staring at a wall for a few seconds, he unfastened his coat and pulled it off. Quietly, he leaned over and wrapped it around Kagome's shoulders. "Don't overdo it, okay?"

"Inuyasha?" Kagome blinked.

Inuyasha shrugged, stretching slightly. "You were shivering."

"Thank you," Kagome smiled and took advantage of the situation by leaning up against him. Looking up, she saw that Inuyasha's eyes were still watching the renewed bickering between their companions. He was smiling. Unseen to his eyes, Kagome continued to cry.

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

Five weeks had passed since that night. It had been five long weeks of nothing but time as they walked in silence through valleys and towns. Kagome had spent a good portion of her time trying to find a way to stop Inuyasha from going to see Kikyo. The other entries in the diaries had predicted each day that passed with chilling accuracy. Kagome knew in her heart that they were true, that the disaster she had read about was really going to happen.

She had considered explaining the journals to Inuyasha, showing him each entry and telling him how the words on the pages foretold the future. The hanyou wouldn't believe her and she knew it. Even with all of the trust that he placed in her, this was just a little too far fetched even for him. Any attention he would pay to her warnings would dissolve the moment that she approached the real reason for telling him about them. Kikyo. The miko almost seemed to override reason where the hanyou was concerned. In time, Kagome had come to terms with that, no matter how much it hurt her in the end. There had even been times that she had stopped to wonder if her reasons for wanting to stop him weren't more selfish than she would like to admit. Was it really because she didn't want to see him injured, or was she even more afraid of watching him go to his dead lover once more? Doubts like that raced through her mind every single day.

One morning, Kagome woke to the quiet sound of rain falling and found herself lying in a pool of water. The itch of rain trailing down her scalp and the cold feel of wet leaf litter against her hands had pulled her out of a deep sleep. As she sat up, she knew. She took a moment to take in the sounds of annoyance and dismay coming from her other companions as they awoke. This was the day she had read about in the journal entry. As a large droplet of water tumbled out of a tree and hit her square in the forehead, Kagome felt annoyance take the place of worry. She wriggled out of her sleeping bag, not bothering to try and let Shippou sleep, and muttered in annoyance about how she didn't have any dry clothes.

"What're you grumbling about this time?" Inuyasha asked, coming over to see what all the fuss was about as Kagome shook out her sleeping bag in disgust as water flew off of it. She looked at him and arched an eyebrow incredulously.

"I don't have any dry clothes, Inuyasha. I also don't have anything to sleep on now. That was my only sleeping bag. Mama's washing the other one still, you know."

"Keh," he shrugged. "You can just sleep on the ground like the rest of us, then."

"Oh, I just can't believe you sometimes!" That was the final straw for her. She balled her fists at her sides and yelled "OSUWARI!"

And with that the day began.

/~*~*~\

The bleak weather only continued to get worse as the day pressed on. Whether it had been the dreary conditions they woke up to or some sense that something terrible was coming, everyone was quiet and withdrawn. The usual conversation that helped the days speed by as they crossed the country on foot was practically nonexistent. After several hours it had become evident that no one was in any mood to keep going. The rain that sprinkled off and on had tapered off but it had left a blanket of unseasonable cold in its place. Finding shelter in a small wooded grove, they quickly set about making camp. As strange as it was to think about, they were only ten or fifteen miles from Kaede's village. Their lack of progress was depressing, but it still seemed like the best thing to do.

Sango and Miroku prodded the flames and tried to get a decent fire going, with the help of Shippou. Kagome noticed Inuyasha standing off to the side. His eyes were serious as he stared off into the distance. The rest of them looked muddy, beat up and rugged but Inuyasha looked flawless in the fading light of afternoon. It was almost as if the weather didn't even register with him. The diary had said that he left just after sunset. Even now the sun was slowly making its way down past the ridge of hills that they were passing through. Kagome knew she didn't have long to act. If she didn't take this opportunity to talk to him then she might never again have the chance. She took a deep breath, wondering what she could possibly say, and walked towards him until she was standing at his side. Slowly, she reached out and slid her hand into his much larger one, meshing their fingers together. She gave his hand a squeeze but Inuyasha's hand was slack against hers. Hesitantly, she asked, "Will you walk with me for a minute, Inuyasha?"

Wordlessly, he nodded. When she tugged on his hand, he followed her. They walked a short distance out of camp, far enough that the others wouldn't be able to hear. Kagome stopped and the hanyou dropped her hand as he took several steps past her before he paused and turned to face her. Even though his body was turned towards her his eyes still slid past her, out of focus. He might have been there but his mind was a million miles away. He was in no shape to be having any sort of serious conversation, and he almost seemed to sense this one coming. "What did you want to say?"

Kagome looked him straight in the eye, not caring that he didn't meet her gaze. It took more courage than she wanted to admit to confront him like this. Usually, she wouldn't have said anything. At that moment, however, she didn't have a choice. "I don't want you to go see Kikyo tonight."

"Keh." Inuyasha's ears twitched at her comment but he still didn't look at her. "I never said that I was going to go see her."

"You may not have said it, Inuyasha, but you and I both know you were thinking about it." Kagome let out a tired, sad sigh as she looked at the hanyou. She wanted to reach out and hold his hand but he seemed so very far out of reach. "I... I don't want you to go to her. I know that you don't think there's a reason for it, Inuyasha, but I'm scared. I'm afraid that she'll hurt you, or... or something even worse, and I don't think I-"

She realized how desperate she must sound. Stopping herself before her voice broke, she took a moment to catch her breath as her mind went over everything that the diary had said would happen that night. Much more quietly, she said, "Just this once... please, don't go. Just this one time, Inuyasha. I'll do anything if you will just stay with me tonight. I'll even stop going home, I'll just stay here all the time. If that's what you want, I'll do it, Inuyasha, just please st-"

Inuyasha's eyes snapped open as his passive attention to what Kagome was saying came to an abrupt halt. The golden eyes that had been avoiding her suddenly burned into her own brown ones as Inuyasha said, "You don't know anything about Kikyo. She would never hurt me. If I want to go see her, then I'll go see her. Stay out of things you don't now about, Kagome."

The hanyou turned his back on Kagome and walked to the crest of the hill that they were standing on. Fifteen feet from her, he gazed out at the sunset through the trees. Kagome was frozen in shock. She had been expecting some sort of response to that end, but she hadn't expected him to be so harsh. She stuttered a few words, her lips unable to form anything intelligible. She reached out for him with her hand but after a moment she stopped and let it fall to her side. Most of the day had been spent trying to come up with some way to convince him not to go, some way to stop him from going and, in response, he had just snapped at her. Even if he didn't know why she wanted him to stay, his reaction had hurt more than she expected. She felt the damp heat of tears stinging the corners of her eyes. The pounding of her heart in her ears was the only thing that she could hear as she quietly said, "I'm sorry, Inuyasha. I should have realized she was more important."

/~*~*~\

Turning, Kagome walked slowly back to camp. The silence that surrounded her told her that Inuyasha hadn't followed her. The distance that she had put between herself and the hanyou, both physically and emotionally, seemed greater with every single step that she took toward her other friends. Regardless, she knew that Inuyasha's harsh statement had been the end of the conversation. If he decided to go to Kikyo tonight, there was nothing that she could do to stop him.

Sitting down on a damp log near the fire, the only things that Kagome could hear were the crackling sounds of the flames in front of her. Minutes passed and it seemed like everyone was staring at her. The quiet conversation that Sango and Miroku had been having, sharing a laugh with Shippou, had come to an abrupt end when Kagome had returned. They hadn't resumed the banter and seemed to be waiting for Kagome to say something. The longer that she waited, the worse she felt. Unable to help herself, she turned slightly and looked to where Inuyasha had stood when they talked. He was gone now.

A loud sigh escaped her lips as Kagome got to her feet. She walked over to her backpack and picked up the wooden bow she had carried with her for the past few weeks. Hefting a quiver of arrows over one shoulder, she turned back to the others and put on her best brave face. "It's a nice evening. I'm going for a walk while the weather's still dry."

Sango frowned. "But Kagome-chan, what if you run into youkai?

"I'll be fine," Kagome said. She held up the bow to make her point. "I can handle myself. If I get into trouble, I'll scream. I won't be far."

The taijiya nodded. All of her companions wore the same sad, chastising expressions of pity. It was just too much for Kagome to handle. She walked past her friends and headed back towards the main road that they had been traveling on earlier in the day. It was evening now and it was starting to get dark but the road was mostly out in the open. She remembered a small clearing with a stream running through it that they had passed not too long before making camp. Perhaps, she thought, she should go there to wash her face off and try to get the depressing thoughts out of her head.

/~*~*~\

Time passed even more slowly out on the road as Kagome walked. She knew it had only been a few minutes but it seemed like hours before she finally found the stream she remembered. Kagome cupped her hand hands and brought more of the cold water from the little creek up to wash her face off. It felt good, but it didn't really help with the dark thoughts that were running through her mind.

Love was not a word that she used casually. When thinking about Inuyasha, it wasn't even something that crossed her mind. She cared for him, but that term had always been where she had drawn the line. "Like" was a perfectly acceptable term, even if she was quickly approaching eighteen.

A little voice in the back of her mind kept asking that, if that was the truth, then why did her heart hurt so much right now that the pain even seemed to radiate to her fingertips? She didn't care that he loved Kikyo. Even the fact that he left to go see her, time and time again, didn't seem to matter. All Kagome really wanted was to have him at her side, to know that he was safe, to know he was... what? Hers? It would never happen. She sighed.

Kagome felt her mind filling with doubt about the diaries for the first time in over a month. They hadn't been right after all. Surely, it was more than coincidence how closely they followed every day, but for once... they had failed. The Inuyasha that she had read about in those pages had loved her. In those journals, he had even told her that. The connection that Inuyasha had shared with the Kagome writing those pages was something that she might never understand but, as she read those words, it had filled her with hope. Hope that she might have some chance at a future like that - preferably without Inuyasha's horrific injuries. Marriage, children and a life in the feudal era. These were things she had never even stopped to think about. The diaries had opened her mind to another world. One where she hadn't gone to college, but her days had been filled with laughter and love.

Her fingers shattered her reflection on the water, dark in the evening light, causing ripples across the surface. Those journals were nothing but dreams on paper. She pushed herself off the ground and looked around. The stars were starting to come out, the clouds were gone and the night was beautiful. She wasn't ready to go back to camp. The clear stream ran into the woods, no more than a quarter of a mile away. Following it, she knew she wouldn't get lost. Perhaps a little more time on her own was what she needed to set her mind straight.

The darkness closed in around her as she entered the trees. Even the sounds of the crickets and night birds seemed to quiet and fall silent as she walked through the forest. The sight of the moonlight filtering through the leaves was beautiful as it danced across the ground like sunlight through water. All of the bright browns and greens of the forest had blended together into shades of gray. In the distance, Kagome thought she could see the glow of a fire. Had she really wound all the way around and wound up back at the camp? She broke through the last of the branches between herself and the firelight and froze dead in her tracks. Glowing in the moonlight, Kikyo sat in the low branches of a tree and stared lifelessly at Kagome. The fire-like effects of the light had been caused by the shinidamachuu that swirled around her. Kagome's heart leaped to her throat. Of everyone that she had considered running into, Kikyo had not been one of them. Inuyasha was nowhere to be seen.

"Kikyo." Kagome whispered her name. The miko stared back at her, eyes empty. It was almost as if she had been expecting her to appear. Rather than turning and walking back the way she had come, Kagome felt compelled to ask. "You plan on killing Inuyasha, don't you?"

"Yes. He belongs with me." Kikyo's voice was flat, dead. She didn't even blink as she answered the question. "He will spend forever with me, in hell."

"You're wrong." Kagome's voice wavered.

Kikyo's head tilted slightly to the side in an expression of mock curiosity. "Why? Every moment he spends with you is a lie. You are only an imitation. A shadow of what I was." Kikyo slid out of the tree, her graceful figure seemed to be as light as air as she walked towards Kagome. Her dark eyes remained unreadable except for the unmistakable hatred that Kagome could see burning in their depths. The undead miko's expression tensed. "And yet, you still have something that is mine. My soul."

The pale fingers on Kikyo's hand reached over her shoulder to pluck an arrow from her quiver even as she brought her bow up. She pulled the arrow level on the bowstring just in time to see Kagome's own arrow coming towards her. Sliding to the side, Kikyo dodged. The arrow slid past her with a harmless flitting sound, taking a few strands of hair with it. Her brows knitted together in concentration as she prepared to attack again.

Kagome was panting. She had never had to fire an arrow that fast in her life. Kikyo was not only a better archer but she was also much faster on the draw. Moving faster than she thought she could, Kagome pulled another arrow out of her quiver. Her breath caught in her chest as she did so. Was this really the last one? She could have sworn she had at least a dozen! Crap! There was no time to think. Kagome tried to move out of the way of Kikyo's arrow but the point still cut a clean line through her shirt and left a burning cut on her shoulder. It was now or never. Leveling her eyes on Kikyo, Kagome notched her arrow and let it fly.

A loud cracking sound echoed through the grove of trees as the arrow struck the miko in the chest. There was silence for a second afterwards, and then Kikyo screamed. The sound was like a hundred different voices all mixed into one. Kagome stared in horror as cracks slowly spread out from where the arrow had hit its mark. Even the shaft of it seemed to be falling apart as she watched. Beneath all of the cracks she could see the shimmering, shining light of Kikyo's souls as they bubbled up like stars. One by one they slipped out of her body and lit up the entire area before fading into darkness. When the last of them had gone from her corpse, Kikyo's screaming stopped. It didn't fade away into silence. It just stopped. Kikyo's lifeless shell fell to the ground, broken and unseeing. The shaft of the arrow, splintered from the spiritual energy, still stood straight up in the air. The shinidamachuu crumbled as their mistress's body fell to the ground. As their light faded, Kagome was left alone in the forest with just Kikyo's corpse to keep her company. She took a few deep breaths as she tried to collect her thoughts. Oh, god. She had just killed Kikyo. She really had just...

And then she saw him.

Inuyasha took two hesitant steps out into the clearing, his red coat making him visible against the trees. She had no idea how long he had been there. His eyes were wide and staring in disbelief as he looked at the lifeless shape of Kikyo laying on the ground. His voice broke as he said her name. "... Kikyo..."

"Inuyasha, she-" Kagome tried to explain. She had to tell him what happened, he had to know, but the hanyou interrupted her.

"Kikyo's dead."

"- wanted to kill you, and -"

"You killed her."

"- she tried to shoot me, so I -"

"Leave us."

"What?" His voice had been so soft that Kagome almost hadn't heard him. Her eyes were completely focused on Inuyasha as she tried to make out what she had said. The hanyou's head had fallen to his chest, his thick white hair covering his eyes. The aura surrounding him now was like nothing Kagome had ever felt before. For the first time since she had met him, Kagome was afraid. Not of Kikyo, or youkai, or Naraku. Not for Inuyasha's life. Kagome was very much afraid of Inuyasha himself. The energy rolling off of him now felt closer to a true youkai than any of the times that Inuyasha had broken his blood barrier. The growl that she could hear very clearly in the back of his throat sent chills down her spine. Surely, Inuyasha would never hurt her? Right now, Kagome wasn't certain of that at all.

"I said go home, Kagome." Inuyasha's fingers flexed at his side and it seemed to take him a great deal of effort to keep the words coming out of his mouth calm. Kagome was in shock. Standing there stupidly, she blinked at him. Anything would have been better than hearing those words. Inuyasha really meant... he didn't want... Inuyasha tensed further when she didn't move. Infuriated, he yelled, "Go home, Kagome! I never want to see you again! You don't belong here."

Hot tears poured down Kagome's cheeks as she leaned against the trunk of a tree for a moment as she heard him say the words. It seemed like the breath had been knocked out of her from the sheer force of the declaration. Unable to hold on any longer, the bow in her hand clattered to the ground. She didn't pick it up. Turning, Kagome took one last look at Inuyasha and then ran as fast as she could through the forest. Her feet ached, her muscles burned. She couldn't remember the last time she had caught her breath. As soon as she found the road, she turned away from the direction that they had traveled and ran the way she knew towards her goal. Kaede's village. The well. Her time. Kagome had no place here. Inuyasha had made that very clear.

/~*~*~\

Hours passed and Kagome barely noticed. The pain in her limbs turned to numbness and her pace slowed. Eventually, she passed through the small town. She ignored the calls of people who knew her as they saw her passing in the early morning light that was starting to creep over the horizon. Kagome turned and walked into the forest until she saw the well in front of her. She sat down on the wooden lip and let her fingers take in the rough texture of the wood. Her brown eyes took in the sight of the pure, beautiful forest all around her. She knew she would never see it again. Leaning backwards, she fell into the darkness.

It seemed that hours, maybe days, passed as she sat at the bottom of the well. Her arms were wrapped around her knees as she leaned against the dirt walls of the ancient pit. Tears poured down her cheeks and little sobs slipped past her lips as she tried to compose herself enough to at least go up to the house. The cut on her arm burned. She felt feverish. She knew that she should go inside. It took all of her strength just to pull herself out of the well. Doing her best to wipe the tears out of her eyes and praying that the redness would go unnoticed, she exited the well house.

The main house was still and empty. Kagome made her way upstairs. She took a shower, so hot that it turned her skin bright pink with the heat. If it had burned, she hadn't noticed. She pulled on a pair of cotton pajamas and crawled into bed. Daylight filtered through the windows as she lay there staring at the wall. She was never going back. He had told her to leave. It was the end. The pounding pain of the emotions flowing through her completely overwhelmed her. Giving into everything she felt, Kagome cried herself to sleep.

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

Kagome's eyes blinked open to the dim light of early morning. Sleepily, she rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. The night had passed uneventfully. Her blankets were tucked more closely around her than she remembered and the window to her room was open. Mama must have come in to check on her during the night. Outside, she could hear the sounds of the birds chirping quietly and the distant noises of car horns and traffic. Everything sounded completely normal and, to Kagome, that seemed very strange.

Slowly, she rolled over to look at her alarm clock. Her body weighed a million pounds and it took every bit of effort she had just to move it. The little white numbers blinked steadily on the black background of the clock, Kagome's eyes squinted in confusion as she double checked the time. Surely it had to be later than that? No, it really was just six o'clock. She usually slept later than that when she was home. Even on week days. How many times had she missed class because she had slept in? _Oh_, she thought, _class_. It was Monday. She could go to school if she wanted.

Kagome grabbed her pillow and hugged it to her chest. Memories from the day before kept flooding back into her mind. She didn't want to think about them. The thoughts were just too much. They hurt. Just a few days before, she had been so certain that she knew what she was doing. Now, the only thing she felt certain about was the fact that she never wanted to go through the well again.

/~*~*~\

Willing her body to move, Kagome sat up and started to get ready for the day. She hunted through her closet and pulled out a clean school uniform. The one she had worn home last night was so beaten up that she would probably have to order a replacement. Sighing, she wondered if she really did order more uniforms than the rest of her class combined. It certainly felt like it, sometimes. Either way, Kagome was glad that she hadn't taken too much homework with her through the well the last time. She paused for a moment as she brushed her hair, remembering that she hadn't had a chance to grab the backpack before she left. One of her homework assignments and most of her pencils and pens were still inside of it. There was nothing she could do about it now. She'd have to ask the teacher for a replacement for the assignment and pray that they weren't too angry with her. It wouldn't be the first time. Putting down the brush, she headed out the bedroom door and down the stairs towards the kitchen.

Even at the top of the stairs, she had been able to smell breakfast cooking. It smelled heavenly. Sausages, eggs and something else that Kagome couldn't quite put her finger on were sizzling merrily in a pan on the top of the stove as Kagome came around the corner and into the kitchen. Mama was slicing peppers on the counter. As Kagome came into the room, she smiled and said, "Good morning, Kagome. Welcome home."

"Thanks," Kagome responded, smiling. It was impossible to be depressed when you were around Mama, since she was always so happy and kind. Kagome grabbed a glass out of the cupboard and went to go pour some milk.

"I made some sandwiches for you to take back through the well the next time you go. I figured that you could use a bit of a change." Mama said, scooping the chopped greens into a bowl.

Kagome looked up from her glass of milk. "I'm not going back through the well again."

"Oh." Mama looked surprised for a moment, but she quickly recovered. Her expression swiftly melted back into her familiar smile, filled with warmth. "Souta can take them to school for his classmates, then."

Kagome had tensed up for a moment, in anticipation of Mama's response. When she heard the reply, she relaxed. Smiling, she asked, "Is there anything I can do to help with breakfast?"

/~*~*~\

That was all it took to get the morning off to a wonderful start. While Mama fixed omelets to go along with the sausages, Kagome helped set the table for breakfast, and then quickly got a lunch packed for herself. She located the sandwiches that Mama had made and packed them for Souta, throwing in a piece of fruit for good measure. They could always fix him a more proper lunch tomorrow. Around six thirty, both Souta and Grandpa came down and sat at the table. Mama and Kagome washed their hands off and brought over breakfast food. As soon as they took a seat, the conversation started flowing.

For the most part, Kagome sat rather quietly as she ate her breakfast. The normalcy of the situation was reassuring. The exuberance and atmosphere made it almost impossible for her to worry. Even so, it was still incredibly different from her usual morning. Cooked fish around a campfire with her friends was definitely what she was used to. She shook her head, chasing the thoughts away. This was the new usual now. Breakfast purchased at the store and cooked on the stove, not caught and cooked outside on the banks of a river.

"Oh! Look at Kagome's face," Souta said, grinning. He was in between bites of sausage and had apparently managed to catch Kagome deep in thought. "She looks just like an oni!"

"Souta!" Kagome said, coming out of her trance. She had been completely lost in the thoughts running through her head. She glared at her brother, trying to put on her best threatening expression.

"What's the matter, sis? Trying to remember the basic math questions for later? One plus one is-" Ignoring the evil look of burning hatred in Kagome's eyes, Souta just kept smiling at her.

"Oh, no. The quiz!" Kagome's eyes flew wide in horror and she promptly dropped her fork onto her plate. She had forgotten the math quiz. If she didn't do perfectly on it, she would never have a chance at passing her entrance exams. They would be having practice quizzes every afternoon, but the big one was coming up in just a couple of days.

Souta took another bite out of a sausage. "Don't worry, I'll help you study."

He was still grinning, but his voice was sincere. Kagome smiled. "Thank you, Souta."

When breakfast was finished, Kagome helped Mama gather up the dishes and quickly get them washed. As fast as possible, Kagome gathered up her spare backpack and the books she had at the house. Saying good bye, she turned and headed out the door to go to school.

/~*~*~\

This was the new normal. It was a routine that every other girl her age should have been used to, should have been tired of. For Kagome, it was neither normal nor boring. She was happy to go to school and spend time in her classes and chatting with her friends in the afternoon. Suddenly, she was so busy that she barely had time to think. Her classes, studying and hanging out with her friends filled up her schedule more than she ever would have expected. Even when they weren't running around, Eri, Yuka and Ayumi spent most of their afternoons helping her cram for tests. Every once and a while they would all take a break and go see a movie. Kagome couldn't even remember whether or not she'd gone to see a movie with them before.

Kagome had thought that Inuyasha would come for her eventually. They had fought before and she had come home before. It usually only took a day or two before the hanyou showed up at her doorstep or window and tried to set things right. This time, Inuyasha didn't come. Time seemed to pass quickly as days turned into weeks. As it did, Kagome forced herself to push the thoughts and memories of her friends in the feudal era out of her mind. Sometimes it was easier to pretend that it had never happened. Some days, though, it was too hard to forget.

/~*~*~\

After school on a bright afternoon, Kagome walked across the courtyard from the steps that lead down to the street up towards her house. It was a picture perfect spring day. The leaves of the tree that Kagome had freed Inuyasha from were rustling quietly in the breeze and golden sunlight tumbled down from the sky. In the cheery sunshine, the well house looked ancient. Kagome stopped for a moment to look at it. The dark wood looked older than time in the brightness, every flaw and crack was highlighted. She had never noticed that before. The building around the well wasn't nearly as old as the well itself, but it was still a couple of centuries in age. Somehow, it just hadn't seemed that way to her.

More than a month had passed since the last time she had set foot inside of the building. The doors had remained shut ever since the night she had come home. The adventures that she had, running around five hundred years in the past, seemed a lifetime away right then. She tightened her hands on the university papers that she had been carrying. For once in a very long while, Kagome allowed herself something that she hadn't in some time. She thought of Inuyasha.

He had always seemed like such a constant presence in her mind before that day. His long, white hair and golden eyes. The sound he would make in the back of his throat when he called her name and really had some reason for needing her, instead of for no reason at all. The memory of his voice was so strong that she almost could have sworn that she had really heard him calling her name. It was as if he was waiting just beyond the door of the well house and that all she would need to do was open the door and there he would be. But no, it was just a memory. Looking down, Kagome was startled to realize that she had reached out toward the building with one of her hands, moving unconsciously toward it even though she knew no one would be waiting for her on the other side.

Kagome let out a heavy sigh and dropped her hand to her side. The longer that she spent away from the feudal era, the more it seemed like it had just been a flight of fancy. There were days when she could still remember everything as clear as a bell, but sometimes it was hard to recall anything at all. She felt incredibly foolish just then, staring at the old building. It was time to grow up, time to move on. She took one last, long look at the well house before turning to head into her home. "Good bye, Inuyasha."

/~*~*~\

"And then the way his face went all 'bleeeeeeh'! Like that!" Ayumi said, sticking her tongue out and rolling her eyes several times. School had let out earlier than expected and Kagome and her friends had decided to go to the theater as a treat. The only thing that had been showing which didn't involve sappy romance (Kagome had voted no to Heartbreak Summer and three other films with equally ridiculous titles) was a horror movie. It had been so bad that they had spent most of the film trying to stifle their giggles. The best part of the movie had occurred when one of the victims of the serial killer had stumbled dramatically around before sticking his tongue out several times before dying, making the face that Ayumi had demonstrated. The girls all laughed heartily at the impression.

"We really should do this more often!" Kagome said. She had enjoyed the movie, but the time spent with her friends had been the best part. There really wasn't anything like quality girl time. Even if most of it was spent preparing for tests.

Eri smiled. "Yes, we should. I'm so glad you're better now, Kagome. We were always so worried about you!"

"We never thought you'd make it past the high school entrance exams, let alone college!"

"Yuka!"

"Well, we didn't." The girl grinned, clueless at the insult. Her happy smile turned into an expression of surprised interest as she stood up on tip toes to look over Kagome's shoulder. "Isn't that Hojo?"

Automatically, Kagome turned to look in the same direction that her friends were now looking. It was Hojo. Already at university, Hojo was dressed in his uniform and looking incredibly handsome. Through out the rest of middle school, and even every year at high school, he still came by whenever he had the chance to give Kagome gifts and wish her luck. She hadn't noticed just how good looking he was before, though. He smiled brightly as he walked towards them, waving one hand in greeting.

"Good afternoon, everone. Higurashi." He held out a small package about the size of a shoe box. "This is for you."

Kagome took the package and smiled back at him. "Thank you, Hojo. What is it?"

"Tea, for your health," he said. "It's supposed to help prevent heart disease. You've been looking much better lately, I'd rather see you stay that way. I hear you've managed to say in school for an entire month this time!

"Yes, I have," Kagome replied. She wasn't sure whether she should be embarrassed or proud. Her absences must have looked completely ridiculous from anyone else's point of view. She had never really stopped to think about that. It was a wonder that the school had never asked a doctor to verify her plague of illnesses. "It's been a real relief to get back to classes regularly, but I've been so busy!"

"I bet you have been. It must be getting close to exam times."

"Again. They're doing exams every three months." Kagome sighed. "I was able to go to school for the last series of exams but I almost flunked. I've got to do better. I will get the top score!"

Hojo laughed lightly at her enthusiasm when she balled her fists at her side and announced her determination. "It really is good to see you being so energetic. I was wondering, now that you're feeling better... would you consider having dinner with me on Friday?"

Kagome's smile faltered. There was no way that she could go out on a date. Not with Hojo, not when she and Inuyasha were- were what? She hadn't even seen him in over a month. It wasn't like there had actually been anything between them in the first place. She took a deep breath, reminding herself again that all of that was in the past. This was now. There was no Inuyasha, no other guy to hold her interest and absolutely nothing to interrupt them this time. Hojo was here, right now, being very sweet and looking at her so expectantly. Why not take a chance? Kagome looked up at him and smiled. "I would love to."

/~*~*~\

Dinner on Friday was a disaster, but that didn't mean it wasn't absolutely fantastic. Since their few attempts in middle school at going to WacDonalds had always gone awry, Hojo had decided to take things up a notch for this date. He selected a beautiful Italian restaurant, staffed by people who might actually be from Italy. The atmosphere had been absolutely fantastic. There had even been live music. The two of them had managed to be seated at a table in the back of the restaurant, away from most of the other diners. It was a bit too private for Kagome's tastes, but the privacy had turned out to be a very good thing. It helped them avoid giving the other diners a good laugh, at least. When the waiter had brought out the drinks, he managed to trip over his own feet. While Kagome's iced tea had fallen harmlessly on the floor, Hojo's soda had soared through the air and soaked Hojo from chin to waist. If that was a sign, they probably should have paid attention, but the two of them laughed it off and kept going.

The next bit of excitement happened when Kagome ordered her food. A simple dish of spaghetti and meatballs wasn't really something that she got to have often at home, so that was what she wanted. She and Hojo were still chuckling over the incident with the drink when she told the waiter what she wanted. Whether it was the addition of laughter or the waiter's poor understanding of Japanese, they never found out, but Kagome's order was wrong when the server brought it to the table. Instead of spaghetti, she got fish. They sent that back and the waiter soon returned with a remarkably creative fruit salad. After having the dish returned twice more, Kagome gave up and ate the mini pizza that was sitting in front of her. Even with the screw up, they managed to pass more than an hour chatting about everything under the sun. From school to previous 'dates', they couldn't seem to stop talking. Kagome couldn't remember the last time that she had enjoyed herself so much.

Later in the evening, they found themselves sitting in Hojo's car, which was parked on the street below Kagome's home. The rain had started about five minutes before they had pulled in and it didn't show any signs of letting up. Kagome sat eying the rain. She was still smiling at a joke Hojo had made.

"It's pretty wet out there, looks like I'm going to have to make a run for it," Kagome said, tightening her hand on the door handle. She hadn't even thought about bringing an umbrella. There hadn't been a cloud in the sky when Hojo had picked her up.

Hojo smiled. "Oh, well, in that case I had better see you to the door. I wouldn't want you to slip in the rain." Earlier in the night, Kagome had managed to get the toe of her shoe stuck in a crack in the sidewalk. She had tumbled over and Hojo had managed to catch her. However, he had then promptly managed to do exactly the same thing. At the reminder, they both started laughing again.

"You should just stay in the car," Kagome smiled. "There's no need for you to get wet, too."

"Really?" Hojo asked. His eyes were twinkling with amusement. "I think I could do with a bit of a shower." He pointed to the large soda stain that was still on his shirt, covering almost the entire front of it. "Besides, it's my responsibility to make sure you get home safely." He reached out and picked up Kagome's hand, giving it a squeeze.

She felt surprisingly warm at his concern, shrugging and smiling she said, "If you really want to then I guess it's okay. I don't know if the rain's going to get that soda out, though."

He nodded. "Ready?"

"Ready, " she said. They both threw open their doors at the same moment. Kagome shrieked as she jumped out into the rain. "It's cold!"

"Run, then!" Hojo said, laughing. As fast as possible, they both ran up the stairs. Kagome held her purse over her head, trying her best not to stumble in the heels she was wearing. They both reached the top at the same time, exchanged looks and made a mad dash for the door. The awning overhead shielded them from the rain as they caught their breath. They were both still laughing as Hojo bent over and rested his hands on his knees and Kagome leaned up against the door. Looking at her, Hojo said, "Thank you, Higurashi. That was the most fun I've had in a long time."

"It was amazing," Kagome agreed. "I should be thanking you, instead."

"I know that, typically, I'm supposed to wait a couple of days and let you have some time, but..." Hojo stood up slowly. His shirt was now completely soaked through with the rain, but it hadn't done much to take the soda out. He reached out and took her hand. "Could we do this again sometime?"

Kagome felt her heart flutter in her chest. The smile on her face widened at the question. "Of course we can. I'm looking forward to it."

"Good." Hojo's face lit up. He leaned over slightly and gave the hand he was holding a kiss. "Good night, Higurashi."

Turning, he walked back across the courtyard and vanished over the edge of the steps. Kagome stood out under the awning for a moment, just trying to wipe the smile off of her face. If Souta saw her grinning like that, she'd never live it down. She hadn't felt this happy in a very long time.

/~*~*~\

A few days later, Kagome and Hojo found themselves walking through one of the city parks. The rain had, blessedly, cleared away. When it did, it brought sunshine and flowers. Thanks to it being a holiday, neither of them had classes, and as a result Hojo had invited her to spend the day with him. He had bought them each an ice cream cone from a vendor and they had spent nearly an hour just walking along, eating ice cream and talking about little things. Hojo's university studies were very interesting, since he was an archeology major, but his classes bored him to tears. He told her about how he wanted to go study in Europe, where there were more opportunities for students like himself. Kagome was able to sympathize with the boredom, but she still envied his classes. There was no doubt in her mind that they were still more interesting than her own. After a while, the conversation petered off and the two of them walked along in silence, pecking at the remnants of their ice cream.

"You know, Higurashi," Hojo said after a while, "It really is good to see you looking better. You're beautiful. I don't think I've ever seen you looking this good. You look amazing, especially today." Kagome blushed at the flattery. In response, Hojo graced her with a soft smile. "Though I have to wonder, are you actually feeling okay?"

Kagome nodded slowly and took her time thinking of a response. When she was with Hojo, she felt comfortable in a way she never had with other people. She had grown used to watching what she said, or even snapping at people for something that they had said, that she had almost forgotten what it was like to have a real conversation with someone. In the feudal era, everything had always been hurried. Even when they weren't fighting, they were still traveling. It was always one thing after another with no real time to relax. It wasn't like that with Hojo. With him, she was just able to be herself and do things on her own schedule. She was just a normal teenage girl with normal teenage worries, and nothing else seemed to matter. What was more, Hojo made her feel happy. Maybe, with him, she could stop hiding. At least, just a little bit. "I'm fine, Hojo. I was just thinking about when I wasn't able to go to school regularly."

"Oh?" His expression was soft and concerned. He was facing forward and still walking beside her, but she could feel his eyes on her, even as he took another bite out of his ice cream cone. "What's on your mind?"

"I don't know if I can really talk about it much," Kagome started, "but I wasn't really out of school for health reasons. I had... a lot of stuff going on at home. I don't any more, so I think I'm doing a lot better now."

One of Hojo's eyebrows raised curiously at the remark, but when she didn't continue he didn't say anything. Slowly, his expression melted into a warm smile. "Whatever it was, I'm glad you aren't having any trouble any more. I worried about you... and if you're ever feeling bothered, don't worry about it. No matter what is going on, I'll always think the best of you." He reached up and brushed a spot of ice cream off of her cheek, where she'd accidentally swiped herself with it. "So, what would you like to do today?"

/~*~*~\

They spent the entire day out. The morning was spent browsing through shops. There were so many of them around town that Kagome hadn't even heard of, she was shocked. She really had been gone too long. If her reactions to the sights around town were strange, Hojo didn't seem to notice or mind. He delighted in taking her to his favorite shopping spots. There was a little candy store that imported everything from different countries around the world that he particularly enjoyed, watching Kagome's expressions as she sampled different sweets that she had never tried before.

When it came time for lunch, they decided on a quaint cafe that had loads of personality and excellent food. The two of them chatted happily, just able to enjoy each others presence and the beautiful day. When they were done with lunch, they opted to go and see a movie. The theater offerings were disturbingly dull but, after some deliberation, they settled on something suitably romantic.

On the screen, a beautiful brown-haired woman swooned in the arms of her lover. Their voices whispered quietly as they promised their eternal devotion, both knowing that death waited just outside the doors of the room. Casually, Hojo wrapped his arm around Kagome's shoulders, his eyes never once leaving the screen. Unused to being that close to someone, Kagome's entire body went stiff as a board at the contact. Wasn't it a bit soon to be getting this comfortable with someone? She had never really done the dating thing, at least, not until now... but something in the back of her mind told her that she probably shouldn't be okay with this. No matter what the little voice said, there was another thought running through her head that was a little louder than the first. It was telling her how warm Hojo was and just how much she had enjoyed spending the day with him. After a moment of hesitation, Kagome bit her lip and decided to give into the emotions she could feel flowing through her. Relaxing into the arm that was wrapped around her shoulders, Kagome leaned up against Hojo and settled in to enjoy the rest of the film with him.

/~*~*~\

When it came time to go home, Hojo drove her back to the shrine and they walked up the stairs hand in hand. It wasn't like the last time, where the rain had been pouring down and they hardly had time to think. As they walked up the stairs and across the courtyard, they talked over everything that they had done through out the day. The way that the flowers looked in spring, which shops had been the most interesting and even their schedules over the next few days were brought up. Somehow, it seemed to take no time at all before they were standing outside of the front door to the house.

"Thank you, Hojo. Today was wonderful," Kagome said, smiling.

Hojo smiled back, seemingly unable to take his eyes off of her. "I'm glad you decided to come along. Days like this really aren't the same when there's no one to share them with."

"I definitely agree..." Kagome could feel her cheeks starting to heat up under his gaze. Hojo seemed to be trying to decide something, shifting back and forth from one foot to the other as he stood there. Curious, Kagome started to ask, "Hojo, is there-"

Before she could finish her sentence, Hojo leaned down and kissed her. Kagome felt a small shock run through her body as her eyes flew wide open with surprise. Without even really thinking about it, Kagome leaned into the touch and kissed him back. It only lasted a moment, but when they parted Kagome could feel her lips tingling. She reached up a hand to touch them as she felt a blush spread across her cheeks. Hojo grinned at her, his face just as red as hers. "Good night, Higurashi."

Not even waiting for a response, he turned and walked back across the courtyard towards the steps. "Good night!" Kagome yelled after him, once she had managed to compose herself enough to form a response. She lifted her hand to wave, even though she knew he probably couldn't see her.

She felt light headed and giddy from the kiss. The entire day had been a whirlwind and she hadn't stopped smiling once! It was the perfect ending to a perfect day. Even so, the small voice in the back of her mind that had been warning her earlier seemed to be trying to interrupt her happy moment. She couldn't help but compare Hojo's soft, warm lips to a pair of much harder, hotter ones that she was used to.

_Used to? That isn't right at all_, she thought. After all, she had only kissed Inuyasha a couple of times, and he had never shown any inclination of wanting to kiss her in the first place.

Kagome's mind drifted over her memories of the feudal era. Every once and a while, her thoughts would run across memories of things she had done five hundred years in the past. Whenever it did, she tried very hard to push those memories far away. They were painful and even the good ones hurt to think about. No matter how much she denied it, there was a part of her that very much missed her friends and the adventures that they had in the past. Most nights, those memories seemed very far away. She found herself thinking, yet again, that sometimes it almost seemed as if it had never actually happened.

Tonight, though, the air seemed electric. Anything seemed possible. She turned and looked at the old well house, visible from where she stood. It was lit up with moonlight and in the darkness it seemed ancient and alive. Here, magic was possible.

Unable to resist the pull, Kagome walked slowly over towards the building where the well was. She stared up at the doors and hesitated momentarily before reaching her hands out and placing her palms flat on the wood, something she hadn't done in nearly six weeks. Taking a deep breath, she slid the door aside and stared expectantly into the darkness. Blinking her eyes to clear the dust from them, she stared into the hollow space inside the building. Nothing. There was nothing there. Only wood, spider webs and darkness. All of it was lit up by moonlight, but now it seemed no more magical or alive than the ground she stood on.

Kagome felt a wave of disappointment and embarrassment wash over her. Did she really think that Inuyasha would be here, waiting for her? "Stupid. God, I am so... so stupid." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The images and memories that had seemed so vivid only a few moments before were quickly fading from her mind's eye. In truth, she could no longer recall just how blue the sky had been, five hundred years in the past. Or the way that the air smelled, how it always reminded her of fresh cut lawns and pine needles. It had only been a little more than a month since the last time she had gone through the well, and already Kagome wondered if she had ever really known that handsome boy with the dog ears and the red clothes.

Almost unconsciously, Kagome reached a hand up and tugged the little jar of shards out of her blouse. She still wore it on a daily basis, always tucked under the collar of whatever shirt or dress she was wearing. In the darkness, the little pink pieces of jewel glowed dimly in the moonlight. Kagome really didn't know why she put the necklace on each morning. It was probably out of habit. It wasn't as though she really needed to protect it from youkai in this day and age. The encounters that she had with them in this time period were so few and far between that Kagome had wondered more than once if youkai were truly extinct now. After all, this was a time for humans. Kagome felt very human just then. She let the small jar tumble back down to rest on her shirt with a light tinkling sound. With a heavy sigh, she turned and walked back towards the house.

/~*~*~\

The first thing that Kagome noticed as she walked through the door was the gigantic yellow backpack sitting against the wall. It was the pack that she had taken through the well more times than she could count. Kagome slid her hand through one of the straps on the back and picked it up. It was considerably lighter than she had remembered. Confused, she walked a little further down the hall and found her family watching a game show on television together. Sticking her head through the doorway, she asked, "Mama, where did this come from?"

Mama turned to face Kagome, smiling gently. "Inuyasha returned that about an hour ago."

"Okay, thank you." Kagome turned and headed up the stairs towards her room. She was glad that Mama hadn't said anything else. Somehow, her mother had always known when something would upset Kagome. It was a quality that Kagome had come to appreciate even more over the past few years. Even so, Kagome could still feel the giddiness from earlier starting to wear off. Inuyasha hadn't even stayed to say hello, or even to ask about the shards. Sighing, she wondered why he would have even wanted to talk to her in the first place. The last time that she had seen him, she had just killed his... lover? That was the only term that Kagome could think of. Inuyasha probably wouldn't have wanted to deal with her after that. Even if he had, it would have been incredibly awkward. What do you really say to someone in a situation like that? It didn't really seem to matter that she had only been defending herself. She was trying to save him, as well. He didn't know that. He probably never would.

Kagome tossed the backpack onto her bed and changed into a nightgown. After a moment of fidgeting, she went over to the bed and started to rifle through the contents of the bag. The food that had been in there was gone, obviously, but most of her homework was still there. It wouldn't do her much good now, though. A copy of Pride and Prejudice was taking up more space than it should, cushioned with a pile of pencils, pens and dried leaves that had managed to find their way inside the bag.

Kagome pushed her hand further into the depths of the canvas bag, digging. No, she was right. The diary was gone. She had always kept one of the diaries with her at all times after she had initially discovered them. More time had been spent reading through them than she cared to contemplate. Where could it have gone, though? It was probably lost in the forest, five hundred years in the past. She couldn't imagine Inuyasha taking it. Even if he had, he probably wouldn't have found it interesting. He had the good fortune of being born into nobility. Even if he had never been treated as such, he still had some of the advantages. Being able to read was one of them. Unfortunately, reading didn't keep you alive. Inuyasha had never shown much of an interest in any of her books, he always seemed to find them very silly. Hojo wouldn't have thought they were silly, she thought.

Sighing, Kagome turned off the light and then slumped back onto the bed, pushing the backpack onto the floor. Which diary had she taken with her that time, anyway? Her mind flipped through recollections of more than a dozen of them that she had managed to read through. Compared to the diaries that had been written after the incident with Kikyo, the number of them that had been written beforehand were minuscule. Kagome could picture many of the scenes that the other Kagome had written. Even the memory of them caused her heart to ache. She had tried and tried to push those feelings and thoughts away. Sometimes she was even able to go for days without thinking about it. In the end, though, she always came back around to wishing that she had been given a chance to live the life that she had read about in those pages.

Inside of one of the journals, Kagome could recall reading an entry where the other Kagome had told about how Inuyasha had wrapped his arms around her and told her that he needed her, that he would never let her go. What had she done that things had turned out so differently? Before, she had thought that the journals were full of hope. Even if things weren't perfect, there had been happiness in the words. Now, they just seemed heartbreakingly sad. The Kagome that had penned each of those diary entries had known that Inuyasha loved her, she had been given the opportunity to see what life with him was like. She had lead a beautiful life. Flawed, yes, but beautiful nonetheless.

Kagome pulled one arm up to cover her eyes as she could feel the tears start flowing. In reality, Inuyasha had always loved someone else. She had wondered if the diaries had actually told what would happen in the future and now she had her answer. Inuyasha had loved Kikyo and, in the end, he hadn't needed Kagome at all. With these thoughts running through her mind, Kagome drifted off to sleep.

/~*~*~\

Outside on the roof, Inuyasha was seeing red. This was the first time he had managed to come through the well in over a month. Sango had been very badly injured in a battle, weeks away from the well, and they had been stuck until she was well enough to move. They hadn't even been able to get to Kaede's village until today. The first thing he had done was to bring back the bag and wait for Kagome to come home. He wanted to talk to her. Needed to, even. Not to apologize, really. Kagome had practically attacked him in all manners regarding Kikyo, but Inuyasha was also aware that his own reaction had been both severe and probably frightening. He never really wanted to tell her to leave. He'd been thinking about that the entire time that he had been unable to see her.

When he came through the well, Inuyasha had intended on going ahead and talking to her for a while, seeing if he could get her to come back to his time. When her mother had indicated that she was out of the house, he figured he'd wait for her. She had to come back sometime. He didn't really have anything else to do and he really didn't know if he could take listening to Sango tell Miroku off for trying to 'help' her with her bandages any more. An hour had passed before Kagome had showed up, but the sight that greeted Inuyasha when she did was enough to make him see red.

There was Kagome, walking up the stairs hand in hand with a man. She was smiling and laughing as the two of them talked. Leaning up against him as they walked. Kissing him.

Any thoughts of making things better with Kagome went right out of his mind. The shards didn't even enter Inuyasha's thoughts as he decided to just leave. All that Inuyasha could see was the image of that boy's lips on Kagome's and the way that she leaned into it. He could feel the sudden rush of anger and he couldn't even pinpoint why he felt it. Kagome hadn't cared enough to stay. She didn't listen to what he had to say. She had just gone back to her world and had been perfectly happy to find herself someone new in the short time that they had been apart. Inuyasha felt betrayed.

Coiling his legs beneath him, he prepared to jump off into the night and head back to his own time. A voice echoed in the back of his mind, reminding him why he had come here in the first place, other than Kagome. Over the past month or so, they had only managed to collect one more shard. Without the presence of a miko, it had remained corrupted ever since. Even with the shard being corrupted, the retrieval of it had prompted Miroku to suggest that Inuyasha should retrieve the rest of the shards from Kagome when he had the chance. Even if Inuyasha had no inclination to see her, especially after what he had witnessed tonight, he still needed the shards.

Quietly, Inuyasha dropped down onto her window sill and slid silently into her room. He walked over to the desk where she normally set the bottle of shards, but they weren't there. She must not have set them down the way she used to. He turned to look at where she lay in the darkness. In her sleep, she had turned and the arm covering her face had moved away. She really was beautiful in the moonlight. She hadn't even bothered to pull the covers of the bed over herself, she had just fallen asleep on top of them. Seeing her laying there, Inuyasha felt the anger that had overwhelmed him start to fade. In its place there was a long, slow ache of sadness. Kagome had never looked so peaceful as she slept when they were in his world. Here, in the silence of this room, she looked so calm, even though the skin around her eyes was slightly red. Had she been crying? The scent of the salt in the air confirmed it.

Even with the tears, Inuyasha was hardly able to take his eyes off of her. He had never quite realized how much he had missed her. Taking a few steps towards her, he wondered what she must have thought when he didn't come for her. They had traveled together for years, and in all of that time they hadn't spent more than a couple of days apart. It had been very strange not to have her by his side, or riding on his back, as he walked. The realization of just how much he had relied on her was more than a little unnerving. Even more, though, he hated seeing her cry.

Without even realizing what he was doing, Inuyasha slowly reached out a hand and ran the back of it across the side of her face, wiping away the moisture that was left from crying. In her sleep, Kagome turned her face towards the warmth of his hand. The hanyou's eyes widened as he wondered if she was awake but he relaxed when she sighed quietly, still sleeping.

"Inuyasha..." Kagome murmured. Inuyasha could feel the color creeping into his cheeks as she realized that she must be dreaming about him.

Softly, he whispered back, "I'm here, Kagome."

Her face pushed closer to the warmth of his hand, still resting against her cheek. She smiled and sighed peacefully, enjoying whatever images were coming to her in her dreams. Barely audible, even to him, she whispered, "I miss you."

Inuyasha could feel his stomach tying itself into knots as he heard those words. He had an uneasy feeling that this might be the only time he would hear something like that pass her lips. The anger that he had felt earlier had melted into pain and sadness, but it was an uneasy pain that he wasn't entirely certain he knew how to handle. Slowly, Inuyasha pulled his hand away from her face. Kagome's face tightened in frustration as the source of her comfort was pulled away, her body twisting as it tried to find it again.

As she turned, Inuyasha saw the shards. The tiny bottle was nestled safely between her breasts, tucked halfway down the collar of her night shirt. There was no way he could get to them. At least, not without doing a good impression of Miroku. On top of that, there was a chance that she might wake up from the touch. Realizing that there was nothing more he could do that night, Inuyasha turned and climbed through the window. With a powerful mix of emotions pounding through him, he vanished into the night.

/~*~*~\

The next morning, Kagome hastily shoved her giant backpack into one of the closets in the hall. She didn't want to see it, or even think about it. She had nothing but bad dreams all night long and, somehow, it had to be due to the backpack. It was probably because it was such a strong reminder of the time she had spent in the past. Much like her past several years of chasing after jewel shards, all of her dreams had revolved around searching for something but never actually finding it. She had awoken feeling distinctly unsatisfied, as if something was missing. Maybe it was tied to the moment of insanity that had caused her to wander out to the well house the night before. That really had been incredibly stupid of her. She knew better now.

Kagome felt her hand wander back up to the jar of shards that dangled loosely at her neck. Contemplating it for a moment, she made her decision. She was not a miko. She was just an ordinary young woman. Slowly, a smile spread across her lips as she contemplated that. Yes, she was just an ordinary woman with an ordinary life and, she thought happily, an ordinary boyfriend. Closing her fist around the bottle, she gave it one hard tug and felt the nylon rope that she had been using to hold it pull apart. Without much thought, she put the jar in the top drawer of her desk and went to go down to breakfast. Once and for all, Kagome was done with the feudal era.

Turning to go down the stairs, Kagome discovered a wonderful surprise waiting for her at the bottom.

"I hope it's not bad timing, but your mother asked if I'd like to stay for breakfast when I came to bring you these." Hojo was standing there, smiling kindly at her and holding a very large bouquet of flowers.

Kagome could feel her face light up as she saw them. "Good morning! Oh, they're beautiful." She hurried down the stairs, not even caring that her hair was probably standing on end, since it hadn't been brushed yet. As she gave Hojo a hug and asked him how his morning was, she couldn't help but think, _This is what I want, now._

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

Five hundred years in the past, Inuyasha paced the length of Kaede's home. Two weeks had passed since that night in Kagome's bedroom. The same night that he had seen her kissing another man. It had also been the same night that he had caught her whispering his own name in her sleep. As the days passed, Inuyasha didn't know whether or not he should go back through to see her again. Honestly, the shards didn't even really enter into his thoughts.

She was the only thing he could think of. His beautiful, sweet Kagome. She had been by his side for so long that the possibility that something like this might happen some day had honestly never entered into his thoughts. When he had seen her that night, asleep on her bed, all he had wanted to do was pull her into his arms and tell her that he would never leave her side again. And now, here he was, five hundred years away and not even certain that he should even try to talk to her. No matter what his feelings were, Kagome obviously hadn't felt the same. The images of her smiling and laughing with that other boy burned like coals in his mind.

"You should go ahead and get the shards at least, Inuyasha," Miroku said. The monk turned to look at him from where he was seated by the door. "Putting things off any longer isn't going to help."

"Keh," Inuyasha stopped his pacing and turned to look at him. "It's not that simple, you know."

"Houshi-sama is right, Inuyasha," Sango took a sip of the tea that she had been nursing. Still recovering from her injures, she was propped up against a wall and favoring her left arm. "Sooner or later you will have to go get the shards. We may not need them to find Naraku, but if you ever want to complete the jewel, they can't be ignored. You'll need them. The longer you wait, the worse it's going to be. For Kagome-chan, as well, you know."

Inuyasha's ears flattened against his head. They were right and he knew it. Even if it was true, he still was uncertain of himself. The last thing he wanted was to go through the well and stumble across a scene like he had last time. Or possibly something worse. He glanced at Sango and Miroku. If he kept putting it off, Sango was likely to try using him to practice her taijiya skills. Miroku looked like he was about ready to kill him, too. The first few days had been a welcome break, but now everyone was anxious to at least start planning how they would continue their search for Naraku, with the shards or without. He was the only thing that was holding them back. After a few moments of deliberation, Inuyasha sighed. He'd go after the shards, but he'd at least wait until he was certain Kagome didn't have any company. "Fine. I'll go get the shards tonight."

"You're going to see Kagome?" Shippou and Kirara had just come in from playing in the grass outside. Shippou looked up at Inuyasha hopefully.

"She ain't coming back, you know. I'm just going to go talk to her." Inuyasha said, quashing the hopeful look on the little fox cub's face.

"I know that," Shippou said, trying to hide a look of disappointment. "Will you take her book back to her?"

"Book?" Inuyasha was confused. All of Kagome's books had been in her backpack, and he'd taken the backpack to her mother. Shippou nodded, and then walked over to the corner where Sango's boomerang, their spare food and the rest of their belongings were being kept until they got back on the road. He dug around for a moment or two, vanishing into the pile momentarily before he emerged with a book in hand. The dusty cover was olive green with flowers on it, definitely not the sort of thing that any of them would own.

"I think it fell out of her backpack," Shippou said, holding it up for Inuyasha to take it from him. "She'll probably want it back.

"Yeah," Inuyasha said, picking it up. He thumbed through the pages at random, watching the tiny symbols on the paper fly by. Out of curiosity, he stopped flipping through and let his eyes glance over the words on the page. What could have been so important that Kagome had carried this around all that time? Before what had happened with Kikyo, Kagome had hardly been able to keep her nose out of a book. What could possibly have been that interesting? As he read the words on the page, Inuyasha could feel his eyes begin to widen at the realization of what he was holding. It was a diary. Kagome's diary. The hanyou looked over at the others to see if any of them seemed to care that he was reading Kagome's book. No one noticed or cared that he was glancing through her personal belongings. Inuyasha closed the book and considered it for a moment. Kagome wasn't there to use the rosary against him, and now his curiosity was piqued. Inuyasha decided to read the diary.

/~*~*~\

"Don't forget to call me if you need anything, Souta. I'll be here all night and Mama gets home on Monday morning, and-"

"Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about it, sis. I'm not eight years old or something. Geez, you're just like Mom." Souta smiled at Kagome and hefted his duffel bag over his shoulder. The weekend had arrived, and both Mama and Grandpa had headed out of town to visit relatives. Souta, rather than spending the weekend with his sister, had decided to go and stay with a friend from school.

Kagome smiled at him and shrugged. "You're right. Have a good evening!"

"I will." A sly expression slid into place on Souta's face. "So, Hojo's staying for the night, huh? I _so_ should tell Mom."

"Souta!" Kagome blushed. "He's not staying for the night, we're just watching a movie! One word to Mom and you are totally dead."

"Mmhmm. Bye, sis!" Souta turned and dashed off towards the stairs that lead down to his waiting car, laughing the entire way. Kagome let out a heavy sigh.

"What's this about telling your mother something?" Hojo walked up behind her and slid his arms around her waist.

Kagome smiled and leaned back against him. "Nothing. Souta was just being a brat." She turned around and gave him a slow, warm kiss. "Shall we fix some dinner first?"

"Sure thing," Hojo said, smiling. "What's on the menu?"

"Tacos. Slice a tomato or two for me?"

/~*~*~\

The two of them set about getting dinner fixed. Everything went incredibly smoothly as they talked over everything from school to sports. The easy pace of fixing dinner in a kitchen like this was still something that Kagome was having to get used to again, but having Hojo there to help her out made her think that maybe eating meals indoors wasn't so bad. Everything just seemed so much easier with Hojo there.

During dinner, the conversation continued to flow. They had finally started talking about education , the one major thing that they both had in common.

"I can't believe I've only got a few more weeks until graduation!" Kagome said, carefully tucking lettuce into a taco shell. "I hope I get my acceptance letter soon. I shouldn't have waited this long to apply."

"It'll be fine. I really think you'll enjoy college more than high school. You'll really be able to get your hands dirty, so to speak." Hojo reached for his glass of soda, and took a sip. "What colleges are your friends headed to, by the way? Are you all trying to get into the same place?"

Kagome sighed. "They've already gotten their letters. Looks like we're all headed somewhere different." She took a bite out of her taco and chewed thoughtfully for a minute before swallowing. "Eri's actually going to the United States! She's always wanted to study abroad, so I think that'll be a good thing for her."

"You're really going to miss them," Hojo said. "What do you think about Eri going over seas to study?"

"What do I think?" Kagome blinked. "I hadn't really thought about it. She's really lucky, I guess. It'd be very cool to have that sort of opportunity."

Hojo smiled and reached across the table to squeeze her hand. She smiled warmly back at him and squeezed his hand in return. He asked, "Shall we go start that movie that you told your brother we were watching?"

"Dishes first."

/~*~*~\

After the dishes were finished and put away, it was only too easy to curl up on the couch as they flipped through channels. In truth, they really hadn't planned which movie they were going to be watching. Hojo leaned up against the arm of the couch, lifting his own arm up so that Kagome could snuggle closer to him on the length of the sofa. Finding a suitably romantic historical movie, Hojo abandoned the remote so that he could pull Kagome closer. Sighing happily, she relaxed easily up against him.

The movie made both of them feel warm. Watching the quiet romantic exchanges on screen, the bold declarations of love and the beautiful movements of the romantic pairs in the film was definitely having an effect on the mood of the room. After a while, Hojo couldn't stand it any longer. Without saying a word, he reached down and put his fingers beneath Kagome's chin. Softly, he brought her lips up to meet his. Kagome reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning into the kiss. His arm slipped around her waist, the other one reaching up to bury itself in her hair. His hand slid itself halfway up the back of her shirt as Kagome moved the two of them closer. They deepened the kiss, both of them moving in tangent as they tangled themselves up on the couch. They both struggled to move closer, consumed by the addictive friction between them. Finding herself pinned quite nicely beneath Hojo, Kagome broke the kiss and tried to catch her breath. Hojo rested his head on her shoulder, as he panted and grinned. "Maybe we should take a break, huh?"

"Maybe," Kagome agreed. She was grinning ear to ear and blushing brighter than she thought possible. Was it just her, or had the room gotten a lot warmer? She was laying with her back on the couch, Hojo pressing down on top of her and she was completely fine with it. He made her feel cared for, and right then she felt completely safe and very happy. She also felt that she should probably stop it from going any further, or she didn't know if she'd be able to help herself. She was still breathless as she asked, "Want to finish the movie?"

"Yeah." Hojo leaned down to give her another kiss. This one was slow and sweet. "Let's move to a better position for watching the film, though."

With a little bit of maneuvering and a few laughs, they managed to align themselves on the couch. Hojo's arm was wrapped around her waist as he entwined his fingers with hers. The movie continued to roll, and the two of them enjoyed just being able to spend time together. As the credits started to roll down the screen, Hojo picked up the remote and turned the volume down until the soft piano music was nothing more than a highlight in the background. Carefully, he reached down and gave Kagome's hand a squeeze. "Look at me, Higurashi."

Kagome wiggled around until they were laying face to face. Hojo's arm around her waist helped to keep them both on the seat of the couch. His face was only inches from hers. The flushed look on his cheeks easily matched her own, and he smiled when she blushed deeper at the realization.

Shyly, she leaned up and pressed her lips to his. He kissed her back, and smiled. The two of them lay there for a while, just enjoying the closeness. Quietly, Hojo said, "I know that we haven't been together for very long, Higurashi-"

"Shouldn't you be calling me Kagome by now?" Kagome teased, her voice just as quiet.

"Kagome." Hojo's smile widened. He bit his lip for a second, and then continued with what he was saying. "Even though it hasn't been very long, I... I feel like I've known you forever."

Kagome could feel her heartbeat speeding up as he looked at her. She felt fuzzy and warm all over, and even though she had no idea what he was going to tell her, she still seemed to be anticipating it. She leaned closer to him as his voice became even quieter. His eyes, which had been staring downwards, looked up to meet hers. Softly, he said, "Kagome, I'm in love with you."

/~*~*~\

Inuyasha leaned back against the wall in Kaede's hut. It was late evening and he had already decided to retreat from the tree that he had been in to somewhere that at least had a fire that he could read by. While it was still earlier than normal for sleep, just about everyone else had turned in. The diary in his hands had managed to hold his interest the entire time that he had been reading it. It was true that most of the entries in the journal were inconsequential, but some of the things that had been written in them were beyond belief.

Things like the way Kagome seemed to see him. She relied on him more than he had realized, and reading the words on the page made the absence of her in the hut all that more real to him. He hadn't noticed that she always moved her sleeping bag to sit underneath whatever tree he was sleeping in at night because she felt safer. While he had always loved the fact that she brought ramen back with her every time that she came back through the well, she had never told him that she did it for him. With all that he hadn't noticed, it really wasn't surprising that she also found him to be incredibly infuriating.

Inuyasha reached a hand up to run his fingertips across the smooth texture of the page. The more time that passed, the more Inuyasha missed her. Even the image of her with that boy couldn't change the fact that, at that moment, he would have done anything to have her by his side. The hanyou let out a heavy sigh as his eyes glanced over the entry he was finishing at the moment.

Kikyo. It had always come down to Kikyo. As he read over Kagome's account of how he had left to find the undead miko, Inuyasha wanted to be able to tell her that he hadn't done it on purpose, when he returned the journal. He also knew that would be a lie. It didn't matter how much he wanted Kagome, or how strongly he felt about her. Some part of him would always be tied to Kikyo. He knew that's as long as she still lived, he would always go to her. Now, however, Kikyo was dead. Inuyasha felt sick to his stomach as an uneasy realization began to sink into his mind. His selfish decision to go and find Kikyo had cost him everything with Kagome. And now, he didn't know if there was anything he could do to make it right.

The past few entries had been different than the ones at the beginning of the book. Their paper was more ragged, and here and there were places where dried blood had seeped through the pages. Inuyasha could smell its rusty scent clearly, even though it smelled very old. What he smelled worried him, because it was his own blood. He looked at the droplets for the longest time, wondering what they meant. Finally, he turned the next page and began reading.

_It's been almost a week since I've been able to write in here. Everything has gone to hell. I don't even know where to begin, but I'll have to hurry because I want to finish before Inuyasha wakes up again._

The sick feeling in Inuyasha's stomach got worse. He had a bad feeling about what lay ahead on the page. The smell of the dried blood was thicker here, and the way that Kagome had written everything had changed to the point where Inuyasha wondered if someone else might have written it. Along with the blood, the smell of tears - more fresh than the blood - was clinging to the fibers of the paper. Had this been what Kagome had been reading the nights she had stayed up crying? She had always told him that she wasn't crying, but he had known better.

On the paper, the entry recounted how Kagome had gone for a walk after Inuyasha had left. The hanyou's eyes scanned the page, feeling guilty as he read Kagome's account of everything that had happened. The way she described finding him with Kikyo, and Kikyo holding him, caused Inuyasha to pause in his reading. Up until then, the journal had been a fairly accurate retelling of their travels over a few weeks before Kagome had gone back to her own time. That last part, however, wasn't right. He had left the others with the intention of finding Kikyo, but by the time he had found her, the miko was already dead.

When he read the next section, it felt as if his blood had run cold.

_Inuyasha seemed to be in a daze but, even now, I wonder if he might have been conscious of my presence there. Her black eyes never left me as she leaned up and kissed him. It was very painful to watch him pull her closer, to see the way that he leaned into her touch, and I'm certain that my reaction is exactly what she was looking for. As I turned to go, she stopped kissing him and looked at me again. She said to me, "Did you ever think he really loved you? That he even cared for you? He will always be mine, Kagome. Are you really so foolish as to wish for anything else? He came to me again tonight, and I did not even ask him to. He is mine. He will always be mine."_

What was Kagome thinking, writing something like that? While Inuyasha had admittedly kissed Kikyo, he would never force Kagome to watch. He most certainly would never have stood for everything that she had just described happening if he had been conscious. One thing was certain, the things that he was reading about now had never actually happened. Was this some sort of dark fantasy that Kagome had? A bad dream that she had, and had mistaken for reality? It must have been, because Inuyasha could not imagine any other reason for her to write something like that. Didn't Kagome know how much he cared for her?

Inuyasha's eyes drifted down the page, carefully taking in every word that she had written. It was detailed here, how Kikyo had attacked him and tried to kill him. The way that Kagome had not had any chance but to kill Kikyo in order to save his life. With every word that he read a terrible understanding began to come over him. Kagome had tried to save his life. And in return for that, he had told her that he never wanted to see her again.

As he moved to close the book, a piece of paper tumbled out. What he read when he unfolded the paper confirmed everything he was starting to fear. There, written in Kagome's distinct handwriting, it said:

_If the diaries are right, Kikyo will attack Inuyasha. What can I do to stop it?_

Kagome really believed that these books, these diaries, foretold the future. And she had tried to save him. The hanyou was on his feet in an instant. He knew now that he had no choice. He had to see Kagome.

/~*~*~\

"Hojo..." Kagome's voice was breathless as she took in what he had just said. He was in love with her? Her heart felt like it was going to burst out of her chest, it was beating so hard. With the hand that wasn't pinned under her, Kagome picked up his hand that was encircling her waist. She brought it up to her lips and gave it a kiss. "You have no idea how happy that makes me."

Hojo let out a sigh of relief so loud that they both started laughing quietly. Unable to resist, he leaned forward and kissed her again. The relief and happiness that he felt at the realization that he felt at her acceptance was evident as he smiled against her lips, keeping the kiss soft. He didn't want to get too carried away. He was still smiling at her, but his smile faded slightly as he said, "I... actually need to talk to you about something, Kagome."

"What is it?" Kagome asked. She noticed the seriousness in his voice, and lowered her own voice in concern.

"I finally got offered an opportunity to work on an excavation, doing real field work. Not just the classes in a classroom any more."

"But Hojo, that's awesome!"

"Yes, it is awesome." His eyes watched her as he smiled back cautiously. "But, Kagome, it's with a school in Germany. Remember how I told you that I wanted to study in Europe?"

"You're moving to Germany?" Kagome's mind went completely and totally blank. How could Hojo be moving to Germany? He hadn't said anything before now, and surely, if it was that far along...  
Hojo was always there with her, and now he was just... going away? Her heart was still pounding in her chest, but now it was for a different reason.

Hojo reached out and placed his hand under her chin, raising her gaze to meet his. "I want to, yes, but I don't think I could stand to go without taking you with me. I know this probably sounds crazy, Kagome, but I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?"

/~*~*~\

Inuyasha slid easily through Kagome's open window as the spring breezes swept by outside. He had come through the well as fast as he could. Here in the darkness, though, the time seemed to move slower than it had. It was peaceful and calm.

As his feet touched the carpet in her bedroom, Inuyasha wondered how Kagome could have ever been so foolish as to think that book could have predicted the future. She really had thought that Kikyo would hurt him, maybe even destroy him. The images of what the diary described were painfully vivid in his mind. He looked at her now, asleep on her bed, and sighed. He wanted to say that it wasn't his fault, that she should have trusted in him more. The fact of the matter was that she had. She had talked to him that night, tried to get him to stay. Maybe if he had listened to her, stayed by her side just that one night, none of this would have happened. After all, all that he really wanted was to have her by his side. Nothing seemed right without her there. All that he had now were these stolen moments as she slept.

On her bed, Kagome had obviously had a difficult time sleeping. Restless in her sleep, she had kicked most of her blankets off and then now sprawled awkwardly across her mattress. Inuyasha walked over to stand beside the bed and gently pulled one of the discarded blankets back up over top of her, as he tried not to notice how beautiful she looked in the moonlight.

The last time that he had come through the well, he had wound up leaving before he could talk to her. Now, he needed to talk to her. He would wait until morning, stay here until she woke up. He had a lot on his mind and he knew he had to see it through to the end this time. No matter how uncertain he might be of what would happen. This time, he hadn't come to just take the shards and leave.

It really was impossible to deny that, in the darkness, she was beautiful. The moonlight seemed to dance across her hair and skin. She was the most enchanting thing he had ever seen. That beauty was marred by what her face didn't show, though. She had been crying. Her pillow was still soaked through with tears. While she was calm in her sleep, he could still smell the lingering scent of sadness and panic. What had happened to her?

"Kagome," he whispered her name. Watching her in the night, he found himself unable to resist. Inuyasha reached a hand out and let his fingertips run through her hair, feeling the softness gliding across his hand. In her sleep, she whimpered and turned her face towards his hand. The hanyou sighed. Murmuring, he said, "What a mess I've made."

He pulled his hand away slowly, trying not to notice the way the small sounds she made tugged at his heart. He set Tetsusaiga down by the bed and lowered himself so that he sat next to the mattress. He'd sat by her bed a dozen nights before, one more couldn't hurt.

/~*~*~\

In her sleep, Kagome dreamed. She had dreamed that Inuyasha had come through the window and that he had tucked her into bed before sitting beside her bed and watching over her as she slept. Dreams like this haunted her almost every night. The dream always ended, though. Not wanting it to end, she murmured his name and tried to reach out for him. "Inuyasha."

"I'm here, Kagome." His voice was quiet and smooth, the way it always had been when they had talked like this late at night in the feudal era.

"Why didn't you come back for me?" Kagome whispered. Her voice was velvet. In her dreams, this was the one was question that dream-Inuyasha never had an answer for. He always stood up and left, or faded away. Her brows knit together in her sleep as she became afraid that he might leave.

As always, the dream-Inuyasha was silent. After a few minutes, however, he spoke. His voice was rougher than it had been before. "I wanted to. I wanted to, but I couldn't."

Inuyasha knew that she was just talking in her sleep. It was something that Kagome did frequently. Once upon a time, he had found it very amusing. That wasn't the case tonight. Even though he knew she couldn't really hear him, he still felt the need to tell her what was running through his mind. How he'd been stuck weeks away from the well, unable to come to her. How every day had been spent thinking about how much he needed her. The fact that he would happily spend the rest of his life letting her osuwari him into a hole in the ground if she could just forgive him for saying those words. He honestly needed to say it. Instead, he said, "I never wanted you to leave, Kagome."

"You told me to. You were right. I killed her." Kagome twisted in her bed, trying to find comfort against the dark thoughts that seemed to consume her dreams. In her mind, she could still see Kikyo before she had fired the fatal shot. She could still see the look on Inuyasha's face as he saw the dead miko in front of him. She whimpered, twisting towards the dark figure of Inuyasha in her dream, trying to take comfort in his presence even as she waited for him to tell her to leave again. "She was going to hurt you, and I couldn't let her do that. I couldn't let her... I'm so sorry!"

The quiet whimpers turned to sobs as Kagome realized what she had done. Inuyasha was alarmed at the sudden change in the sleeping girl. He couldn't stand for her to cry, he knew he had to do something. Moving carefully, Inuyasha stood up and sat down on the bed next to her. "Shhh, Kagome," he whispered. He put a hand on her shoulder, petting her arm as he tried to get her to calm down in her sleep. "You didn't do anything wrong."

To his surprise, Kagome rolled over and scooted closer to him, wrapping her arms warmly around his waist, and leaning her head against his hip. She was still sobbing quietly, but at least it wasn't as loud as it had been. Her face was practically buried in the material of his hakama. In a voice so quiet he could barely hear it, she whispered, "But you still didn't come back for me."

Inuyasha's eyes were unreadable as he looked down at her. As gently as he could, he took his hand away from her arm and tried to reposition her. She finally settled down, sitting mostly in his lap, her arms still wrapped around him and her face pressed up against his chest. "I'm here now, Kagome. I'm not going anywhere."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Good." For Kagome, the dream was starting to get fuzzy again. Inuyasha smiled as her words started to sound slightly slurred. She nuzzled closer to him, tightening the hold her arms had on him. Struggling not to lose the good dream, Kagome sighed. Her voice was so soft that he almost didn't hear it. "I love you, Inuyasha."

Inuyasha's ears twitched when he heard the words. He felt his heartbeat speed up as he looked down at her in disbelief. She had only been talking in her sleep, but she had very clearly just told him that she loved him. A little spark of hope crept back into his heart. Leaning his head down as best he could, Inuyasha pressed a kiss to her forehead. In the darkness, he said, "Come home with me, Kagome."

Her head turned restlessly against his chest, the warm feeling of comfort and happiness draining from her dream. "I can't."

"Why?" Inuyasha felt confusion and fear at her reaction. He pulled Kagome closer as he waited for the answer. When it came, it was something he would never have expected.

"Because I'm getting married."

_To be continued..._


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

In the darkness, Inuyasha stared down at Kagome. The words that had just come out of her mouth were the last thing on earth he had ever expected her to say. Kagome was getting married? He felt his breath catch in his chest. Inuyasha knew that he had been gone for a while, but he had never thought that she would ever do something like this. Even when he had seen her with that boy, it really had never occured to him that it was something serious.

A cold chill of betrayal and loss snaked its way down Inuyasha's spine. Even though he and Kagome had never talked about it outright, even though he had never asked her to be his wife, hadn't she been his? Perhaps not by that term, but she had been his... partner. Or would be eventually, at least. Inuyasha had been so certain of that, so certain that she knew that, that the realization that he had been wrong was beyond his comprehension. As he thought about everything that he had gone through with the young miko, his mind could not fit this new information into the puzzle. Unable to think, he whispered, "Married?"

Kagome squirmed uncomfortably at his side. Even in her sleep, she didn't want to talk to him about her engagement. Pressing her hands against the fabric of his clothes, she pushed herself away from him, unable to answer his inquiry while she was that close, even in her sleep. "Hojo... asked me. Going to Germany, and I..."

Inuyasha reached out gently and pulled Kagome back against him. He could feel his stomach tying itself into knots. He didn't know what Germany was, but he did remember Hojo. Hojo was the friend that Kagome had introduced him to during her abysmal school festival, as she and Inuyasha had chased down several youkai. Before, he had been just a boy. Now, however, Inuyasha was forced to admit that he was no longer a child. He had become a man. The man that he had seen kissing Kagome. A million different thoughts and feelings ran through the hanyou's head. This news was unexpected, to say the least. Back then, he had thought that Hojo had wanted Kagome for his own. Kagome had told Inuyasha that it was simply part of the play that they had been acting out. Now, Inuyasha wasn't so certain.

Inuyasha now knew why Kagome had done what she did, he had wanted to come back and make her his again. He knew that she had been trying to save him, and that he had been too foolish to listen to her. But now, what was he supposed to do? If Kagome had wanted to save him so badly that she had killed Kikyo, then how could she just... marry someone else? He had considered many different possibilities, things that could go wrong. He had never even stopped to consider that she might not want him. Inuyasha had never felt so confused. He had to know why she was doing it, any of it. His voice barely above a whisper, he asked, "Do you... love him?"

Kagome was silent. Against his neck, her breathing was deep and easy. She had finally fallen completely asleep. Inuyasha let out a sigh and wrapped his arms around her as he leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead. He leaned back against the headboard of the bed, but he wasn't able to fully relax. This whole situation was such a mess. He had come through the well to talk to her. But, more than that, he knew that he didn't want to go back to his own time without her. Inuyasha knew that she would be mad at him for not coming sooner. For everything with Kikyo, too. Hell, she would probably Sit him so hard that there would be a hole in her floor by the time she was finished. It didn't matter, if he could just figure out how to straighten all of this out, somehow.

Inuyasha's thoughts swirled through his mind as he tried to make sense of the thoughts running through his mind. Kagome was getting married. It was true that many things had changed between his own time, five hundred years in the past, and Kagome's time, but Inuyasha knew that marriage was something that was still just as important. It was a decision that would last the rest of Kagome's life. It was hard for him to believe that Kagome had made such an important decision so quickly. The thought that she also hadn't chosen him, in the end, felt like it would burn a hole in his heart. How was it even possible that his beautiful, sweet Kagome could still lean up against him like she was if she truly belonged to someone else?

Inuyasha felt completely lost. He didn't know what he should do in a situation like this. Everything had seemed so much simpler when he had just been thinking about how he was going to come back for her. The plan had been very straightforward. He would come to her time and talk to her. She would get pissed off at him. They would fight. And then, everything would go back to normal. Even at the worst of times, that was what they had been doing for the past few years. Ever since he had met her, this was always the way it had played out. But, what now?

There was a part of his mind that told him that it might be best for him to just leave. It would have been so easy to do. All he would have to do was stand up and walk away. He could go back through the well, return to the others, and continue looking for Naraku. It would be as easy as setting her down and going back to the well. All he would have to do is let Kagome live her own life.

Inuyasha knew that walking away would be the best choice for everyone concerned. Kagome would be happy in her own time. She would be safe. She wouldn't run the risk of being killed in the search for the shards. She could have a long, fulfilling life here if only he would just get up and leave. Inuyasha knew that it would be the smart choice. The breeze blowing in from the open window called to him, and he was sorely tempted to do so. When he blotted out the thoughts of Kagome's other man out of his mind, and just pictured her smiling and happy... it was almost enough to make him get up and leave.

Inuyasha looked over at the open window. Here, in the darkness, everything seemed to move so much slower than it had over the past few weeks. Even with what Kagome had just told him, he knew that he couldn't leave. Leaving would be the easy choice, and more than likely the best one. But, for once in his life, Inuyasha wanted to be selfish. He had know when he came back through the well that there was a chance that she was with another man. But, right then, sitting there in the darkness and feeliing the warmth of her breath against his neck, he didn't care. He remembered the way his heart had sped up when she told him that she loved him. In that moment, he knew that he couldn't lose her. Nothing had seemed right without her at his side. Regardless of the consequences, he would stay with her through the night. And, no matter what, he would make her his.

/~*~*~\

Slowly, Kagome drifted into consciousness. The sound of rain filtered into her room and the patter of individual drops pelting the window sill made her wonder when she had opened the window. It was a miracle that she had gotten any sleep at all. She had been plagued by strange dreams the entire night. It was true that some of them had been quite pleasant, but for the most part they had just left her feeling deeply unsatisfied. The miko yawned, willing herself to wake up. She should have been used to having dreams about Inuyasha. Even when they had been traveling together, he had appeared in her dreams more often than she would have cared to admit.

Kagome squirmed as she tried to roll over to get out of bed. The foggy remains of sleep still stuck to the edges of her mind, and she wanted a shower so she could wake up properly. Try as she might, though, she just couldn't seem to roll over. Her hands wandered over her blankets, wondering how she had managed to get herself so tangled up in her covers that she wasn't even able to sit up. Something around her waist felt very heavy. She groped around, looking for the edge of her comforter so that she could pull it off of herself. She looked down, trying to figure out why she couldn't even find the blanket. Whatever traces of sleep had been left in her mind vanished completely when she saw the red cloth and long claws that were carefully tucked around her waist. "Oh, my god. Inuyasha."

Kagome's entire body went stiff as she became aware that it wasn't just Inuyasha's arm on her bed. Slowly, she turned her head and rolled backwards slightly and looked over her shoulder. Not an inch from her face was the red collar of Inuyasha's haori, and the hanyou's sleeping face. Kagome swallowed hard, her mind racing. "If he's here... if Inuyasha is really here, then he really did... and I really said... oh, god. I wasn't dreaming."

Kagome's heartbeat sped up as she realized exactly what was happening. At some point during the night, Inuyasha had come through her window. He had talked to her. Even worse, she had talked to him! And then... oh, god, he had fallen asleep on her bed. She felt her mind try not to think of the fact that they had, in one manner or another, wound up sleeping together. Quickly, she told herself that it would be better to think of what was happening at that exact moment. However, the last vestiges of sleep had fallen away from her mind and thinking of the present made her aware of just how close Inuyasha was. She could feel the warmth radiating off of his solid chest, which was pressing up against her back. Her breath caught in her throat as she noticed that she could hear a light growl in the back of the hanyou's throat when she tried to move away. That was it. She had to get up, before she decided she didn't want to any more.

As gently as possible, trying her best not to wake him, Kagome lifted his arm and moved it away from her waist, ignoring the deep growl rumbling in Inuyasha's chest as she did so. As soon as she was free, she stood up, pressing her hand to her chest and willing her heart to slow down. Slowly, she turned around and looked back to make sure that he really was there. Kagome wasn't entirely certain that she hadn't just imagined him.

There, laying on her bed, was the one person that she thought she might never see again. Shock resonated throughout Kagome's entire being. He wasn't supposed to be here. He wasn't supposed to come back. How many weeks had it been now? She had been so sure that he would never come back. It was a fact that she had accepted, and she had never even thought that... Kagome could feel her cheeks warm up as she remembered exactly what it was that she had said during the conversation the night before. She had told him that she loved him. Something inside of her twisted painfully when she thought about that, but she tried to push it away.

Her heartbeat seemed to be having trouble returning to normal. Silently, Kagome cursed her body's natural reaction to having the hanyou so close, even though she had felt it dozens of times before. Every time that he had carried her on his back, the familiar sensations had flowed through her, warm and comforting. Now, it was an annoyance. As much as she desperately wanted to deny it, there was a part of her that wanted nothing more than to curl back up in that bed, lay down next to the hanyou and just pretend that the past few weeks hadn't happened. Looking at the expression on his face now, still scowling in his sleep from the loss of the miko next to him, she could safely say that Inuyasha hadn't minded sharing the bed. Considering how very much she wanted to hate him, the heat that she could feel flooding into her face, and other areas, betrayed her as she thought about her closeness to him. She pressed her heart more firmly to her chest, determined to clear her mind enough to think for a moment.

As her hand rested on the soft cotton of her night dress, Kagome saw the shining silver band around her ring finger. Her engagement ring. It wasn't anything fancy. It was just a simple band with a small stone. She thought it was beautiful. It wasn't flashy or huge, but it was very sincere. Kagome bit her lip and looked back over at the hanyou currently wrapped up in her covers. All thoughts of waking him up, overlooking the past few weeks or whatever other insanity might have run through her mind vanished the instant she saw her ring. Even if she had wanted to deny it, not that she did, she was Hojo's now. Anything that she might have wanted with Inuyasha, no matter what she felt, it couldn't happen any more. He had been hers once, five hundred years in the past. This was the present. She would let him sleep for now, and when he woke up she would give him the shards and tell him good bye for the last time.

Her eyes lingered on him for a moment longer and she could feel a well of sadness opening up in her heart. Then, the miko turned and headed to the bathroom to shower.

/~*~*~\

Inuyasha's first thought on waking was that the bed was empty. Kagome was no longer beside him, and the sheets that she had been laying on were cold. She had gotten up some time before. Unalarmed, but curious and still half-asleep, Inuyasha pushed himself into a sitting position.

"Good morning, Inuyasha." Kagome's voice drew the hanyou's attention to her desk. Kagome was looking at him from the desk chair. She was dressed in slacks and a blouse, her hair pulled up. She had already gotten ready for the day. Much like the tone in her voice, the expression on her face was not friendly or even welcoming. If anything, it looked cold.

Inuyasha smiled at her, but he felt the smile fall as he took in her expression. Hesitantly, he responded, "Good morning."

"These are what you're here for, right?" Kagome reached almost casually over to the drawer of her desk. It had already been sitting open. She reached a hand inside and pulled out the little glass jar with the shards in it. She dangled it by the chain that held it for a moment. Then, she picked up her purse and stood up. With a look that was almost hurt, she took a couple of steps towards the bed and then tossed the jar of shards the rest of the distance to Inuyasha. Kagome pulled the straps of her purse over one shoulder. "I'm leaving. Good bye, Inuyasha."

"Kagome! Wait." Inuyasha hadn't even looked at the bottle of shards laying on the bed. His eyes were fixed on Kagome. Without even thinking, he reached a hand towards her. Even though she had already started to walk towards the door of the room, she paused and turned to look back at him. She had been so determined to hide her feelings and just get it over with, but with Inuyasha looking at her like that, she knew that she would start crying if she stood there for too long. Any mask of annoyance or anger was gone from the hanyou's face, and the serious expression that replaced it showed that he was just as close as she was to losing control. When he spoke, his voice was rough and barely above a whisper. "Kagome, come back with me. Please."

The pain in his voice was echoed by the expression on his face. For a moment, Kagome seriously considered giving in. She had forgotten the way that it felt to have him there, by her side. She felt safe in a way she never did when she was alone, or with anyone else. It was a feeling that she only had with Inuyasha. She felt like she was home. Her heart longed to just say yes, to close the few feet between them and tell Inuyasha just how very much she had missed him. Every strong, painful beat of her heart told her that it would be the right thing to do. All that she had to do was give in and tell him that, yes, she would go with him.

Inuyasha moved his hand out further and, despite herself, Kagome felt herself reach for him. His expression was incredibly sincere, even pained. However, she also remembered that he hadn't come back for her. Slowly, Kagome regained her composure and pulled her hand back. She dusted her slacks off, hoping that she looked casual. As best she could, she pushed aside all of the emotions she could feel running through her. She let out a sigh and said, "No, Inuyasha. I can't."

"Why?" Inuyasha's golden eyes were clouded with confusion.

"I have a life here now, Inuyasha," Kagome said as she made her way to the door, praying he couldn't see the tears starting to form in her eyes. She took one long last look at the hanyou. "Good bye."

Kagome tried her best to ignore the sound of Inuyasha calling her name as she walked down the stairs towards the kitchen and living room. No matter how much she fought it, or tried to bolster her resolve, she could feel the painful ache of her heart tearing in two as she made her way towards the door.

/~*~*~\

Once outside, Kagome gave herself a moment to breathe. She wasn't entirely certain her legs would still be able to hold her up, and the heat of fresh tears stung her cheeks. Walking away from the hanyou was the hardest thing that she had ever had to do. It had taken more strength than she had realized at the time. For weeks, all she had wanted was for Inuyasha to come back for her. And when he had, she had told him to leave. Her heart felt like it had broken into a thousand tiny pieces.. She had never thought that she would be in that position, having to choose between the past and the present. Inuyasha and Hojo. The cruel irony at the thought that this was payback for her jealousy over Kikyo was almost too much to bear. Now that she knew what it felt like to choose, she almost wished that she hadn't.

All around her, kept away only by the small overhang over the door, the rain was still falling. The sky was pouring down torrents of water that looked more like sheets than individual drops. Ordinarily, this would have just made her day worse. After all, she had left her umbrella in Hojo's car after the last time and hadn't had a chance to retrieve it. Kagome had spent a good deal of time on her hair and make up, and the rain would ruin it. Kagome still felt grateful for the weather. It would hide the fact that she was crying. She managed to catch her breath. She turned and locked the front door to the house, grateful that no one was home to see her upset. Putting the keys away in her purse, she walked out into the falling rain towards the steps that lead away from the shrine.

Without warning, a blur of red dropped into her path. Inuyasha stood silently no more than five feet in front of her. His eyes were unreadable as they caught her own brown gaze. Kagome stopped dead in her tracks. A new wave of shock washed over her as the rain fell on both of them. The expression on the hanyou's face was somewhere inbetween extreme anger and unbelievable loss. In all the time that she had known him, Kagome had never seen an expression of that intensity on his face. Not even when Kikyo died. Inuyasha stared into her with so much emotion that Kagome could feel herself blushing under the force of his gaze, even as the rain around them soaked through her clothing and chilled her skin.

Minutes passed and neither of them sad a word. Unable to match the intensity in his eyes, Kagome dropped her own to the stones that covered the ground beneath her feet. "What do you want, Inuyasha?"

"You."

Kagome's eyes looked up sharply as he spoke the word. It was enough to knock the breath out of her. "Inuyasha, w-"

"Last night, you said you loved me, Kagome. Is it true?" Inuyasha cut her off, not needing to hear any more of her feeble attempts to dismiss him. The miko stared at him, mouth open, unable to come up with a coherent answer. There was no need for one. In the space of a few brief seconds, Inuyasha had closed the space between them. He reached out and pulled her roughly up against him, delighting in the feel of her body even through the thick layers of his clothing. Not even an inch away, she whispered her name. The tone in her voice wasn't telling him to back off. Even if his will power had let him resist his feelings this far, he knew that he wouldn't be able to hold back any longer. Inuyasha bent his head and pressed his lips to Kagome's. Gentle at first, the kiss quickly became heated. One hand snaked protectively up Kagome's back, fingers pressing against the skin under her blouse possessively and pulling her even closer to his chest even as he felt her giving in. Her own arms wrapped up against his neck, and her mouth pressed urgently up against his own. Kagome opened her lips and let Inuyasha deepen the kiss. She could feel all of the pent up emotions that had been flowing through both of them pouring out through the contact. It felt like her entire body was on fire. All of her resistance was gone, and she let herself give into the sensations flooding through her. The heat of his body, the barely controlled urgency in his kiss, were too much for her to stand. She could barely breathe, and she didn't even care. She wanted... she needed...

"Kagome?"

The entire world came crashing down. Kagome turned her head, still burningly aware of the fact that Inuyasha had managed to slide one hand halfway down the waistband of her slacks, and that her shirt was hiked higher than could possibly be decent. There, standing on the top stair of the path to the shrine, was Hojo. He was standing under and umbrella, his other arm carrying a jacket. He took a hesitant step toward her. "Kagome? What's going on?"


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

The rain poured down on the three of them as they stood in the courtyard. Inuyasha's breath was hot on Kagome's neck, and he could feel the pulse racing beneath her skin. Even though the hanyou's  
hands felt as hot as fire against her body, the only thing that she really seemed to notice were Hojo's eyes staring at her in confusion from across the walkway.

"Is this him, Kagome? Is this the _boy_ you are willing to leave me for?" Inuyasha's words were barely a whisper in her ear as he pulled away from her. His hands moved out from under her shirt as he  
stepped several feet away. She didn't dare answer him. She hadn't missed the emphasis he had put on 'boy'. Despite how rough his voice sounded, she could also hear the fear behind it. He didn't want her to  
go and, despite herself, a large part of her didn't want to, either. Her entire body seemed to be telling her to just go back to Inuyasha, even though she knew that Hojo was still standing there and waiting for  
her.

The chill of the rain seemed to soak through to her bones as she realized that she had to make a decision. A choice. Here she stood between two men, both of them waiting for her to move. Looking at Inuyasha, her heart ached. She had never shared so much of her life with anyone as she had with him. Even so, she knew that if she simply turned and walked away, he would let her go. No matter how much he wanted her, no matter how aggressive or strong he might be, he would never force her to go with him if she did not want to. All that she had to do was walk away. That was what she had told herself that she would do. Wasn't that what she wanted? All that she had to do was walk away. All it would take was a few steps towards her fiance, the man who loved her and even then was watching her with all the care and concern in the world. She knew that if she just told him that she was sorry then he would accept and they would live their life as if nothing had happened. It would be as if Inuyasha had never come back through the well.

With a look of uncertainty on his face, Hojo walked towards Kagome. His dark eyes moved between her and her strangely dressed companion, unsure of what he should do. No matter how the situation looked, there was always another explanation for everything, he was sure of it. Even if there wasn't, a confrontation would do none of them any good. As he finally reached the pair, he reached out and took Kagome's smaller hand in his own. He looked down at her and said, "We're going to be late. We should go."

Kagome felt lost. While her heart told her that she needed to stay with Inuyasha, she knew that she should go with Hojo. After all, they were getting married. This was the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with. She looked down at their hands and nodded. She took a step forward and began to follow him as he lead her towards the stairs that lead away from the shrine. In a little over a month, she and Hojo would be husband and wife. They were moving to Germany. Her feet slowed as she thought about it. He was going to college there. That was why he was traveling all the way across the globe. Why was she going with him? Her purpose... Whenever she thought about those words, it wasn't Europe that she saw. It wasn't an apartment, or a husband or a wedding. It wasn't Hojo. The only thing she could think about was Inuyasha, and the tiny jar of pink jewel shards that were still laying up on her bed. Kagome felt her breath catch in her chest as the realization hit her. Even though it had taken him this long, Inuyasha had come back for her. Not for the shards, but for her. She knew now what her purpose was. She was meant to be with him. She stopped walking. "Hojo, wait."

"What is it?" His voice was filled with concern as he turned to look at her.

"I am so sorry," she turned to look up at him, "but I can't do this."

Hojo's expression darkened into a frown. "Can't do what, Kagome?"

Her gaze drifted down to her hands. Slowly, she pulled the tiny silver ring from around her finger. Tears slid down her face as she reached for his hand and pressed the piece of jewelry into his palm. "I am sorry, Hojo. There's somewhere else that I need to be."

She didn't want to see the look on his face. Unable to think of anything else to say, she turned around to look at Inuyasha. When she did, no one was there. He had already left.

/~*~*~\

Kagome didn't even bother to check and see if he had gone to retrieve the shards from her room. From where she was standing, she could easily see that the door to the well house had been opened. Inuyasha had returned to his own time as soon as he had watched her walk away with Hojo. At that moment, it didn't matter how much time had passed before Inuyasha had come for her. Nothing mattered except the fact that Kagome knew that she had to go through the well and find him again.

She had tried for so long to deny that, no matter how many times she had told herself she was wrong, her place was by his side. Even five hundred years in the past, it had always felt right to her no matter how much she had tried to fight it. The diaries had been wrong about many things. Inuyasha hadn't been gravely injured. Kikyo had died. For better or worse, the books had been wrong. More than anything, however, she wanted them to be right about her future. A life with Inuyasha. He had always been where she belonged.

She pushed the door open further and slid into the well house. It was dusty, but some part of her had missed the old building, with its musty smell and storage boxes. She walked down the stairs and placed her fingers on the edge of the well, looking down into its depths. It was finally time for her to go back. Carefullly, she sat down on the edge of the well and swung her legs over the darkness below her.

"You didn't go with him."

Those five words shattered the silence in the small building. She turned around to look behind her, nearly slipping as she did. Highlighted in the dim light that filtered through the door, Inuyasha stood beside the the base of the stairs. He hadn't gone through the well, yet. Moments passed that felt like hours as they watched eachother, neither sure of what to say. The only sound in the air was the beating of the rain on the roof. Finally, Kagome breathed. "No. I couldn't."

"Why?" His eyes watched her every movement as she sat up slightly on the edge of the well, balancing her weight on the wood.

Kagome met his gaze. "That wasn't what I wanted."

For a long moment, Inuyasha did nothing. Then, very slowly, he walked over and stood in front of her, curiosity in his gaze. "Why did you come back, Kagome?"

She could feel the tips of his claws as he reached upa nd brushed his fingertips across her cheek. Unable to stop herself, she leaned into the familiar feel of his touch. She had forgotten how much she missed the way he felt. Softly, she reached up and covered his hand with her own. "Because I'm ready to go home."

**End**

_Author's Note:_ Thank you to everyone who has stuck with The Diaries to the very end! I hope you have enjoyed this fanfic. Please leave me a review and tell me what you think. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. =) It's been a long time coming, but we have reached the end! I love writing Inuyasha and Kagome. Soon, I'll be writing another InuKag fic called "Ten Feet". It will be a bit more lighthearted than this one. Inuyasha and Kagome are put under a curse that won't let them wander more than ten feet from each other! I hope you'll read it when I get it up! Over the next few days, I'll be going through and reuploading chapters of The Diaries, spell checking them and fixing some typos, so don't be surprised if you notice a few changes.


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